Pop Art Legend John Van Hamersveld Drops First NFT Collection

John Van Hamersveld, the legendary multi-disciplinary artist who created “The Endless Summer” Day-Glo pop art poster and more than 400 album covers including The Beatles’ “Magical Mystery Tour,” Jefferson Airplane’s “Crown of Creation,” and The Rolling Stones’ “Exile on Main Street,” released his first official NFT collection on Tuesday, August 24.

WAX, which has also released digital collectibles to its carbon-neutral blockchain for Atari, TOPPS, William Shatner, and more, released vIRL® NFTs featuring both digital and physical collectibles created by Van Hamersveld at 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT Tuesday.

A Standard Pack with 15 pre-future cards is priced for $14.99, with a Mega-Pack of 55 pre-future cards also available for $49.99. Both are limited-edition, with 5,000 Standard Packs and 3,500 Mega Packs available to purchase.

The Van Hamersveld collection allows purchasers to craft and create. By combining five identical “pre-future” build cards, you get an upgraded card in one of four outstanding rarities.

There’s also the chance to unpack a “post-future” vIRL® NFT special edition that’s redeemable for unique JVH guitar pick tins and pin sets.

To prep for the official launch, WAX invited the public to join in a stress test on Monday.

Van Hamsersveld grew up surfing and skateboarding on the Southern California coast in the ’50s and attended Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and the Chouinard Art Institute in downtown Los Angeles in the early-to-mid-’60s. He earned renown and respect for his groundbreaking creative work in the surf, music, and advertising industries from the early ’60s through the ’90s, before he embraced the Digital Age and launched a new phase of his career at the turn of the century.

Since then, his creations have included large-scale works such as the Fremont Street Experience overhead multimedia display in Las Vegas, and the colorful art panels covering the huge, once-ugly Department of Water & Power tank in El Segundo, California, near his home in Palos Verdes.

A pop culture icon in his own right, Van Hamersveld and his kaleidoscopic career were recently profiled in the award-winning film documentary “Crazy World Ain’t It.” His autobiography, “My Art/My Life,” was published in 2010. He celebrates his 80th birthday on September 1.

Along with NFT collections and myriad other current projects, Van Hamersveld is co-authoring a new book tracing the colorful six-decade history of his image for “The Endless Summer”: how he created it in 1963 as an ad for filmmaker Bruce Brown’s epic surf travelogue, how it has visually defined surf culture since the movie’s initial release in 1964, and how it became art now in the collections of MOMA, LACMA, and the Smithsonian.

Find out more about Van Hamersveld here. 

Read the complete JVH NFT collection announcement from WAX.

Stephen K. Peeples is a Grammy-nominated multi-media writer-producer and radio/record-industry veteran raised in Miami and Los Angeles. He wrapped a 46-year media career in 2021. For more info and original stories, visit Peeples’ website and YouTube channel.

Article: Pop Art Legend John Van Hamersveld Drops First NFT Collection
Author: Stephen K. Peeples
Category: News and Reviews
Article Source: StephenKPeeples.com