![]() Edward Hopper The Nighthawks(1942) David Mann Midnight Run(June, 1972) Edward Hopper Summer Evening (1947) David Mann Pick-Up (Want Some Candy?)January 1974 Edward Hopper Gas (1940) David Mann Gas Stop (1967) Look at the figures in Hopper’s work, and compare them to Mann’s. His earliest works were primitive – a cross between illustration and caricature – but as he gained experience Mann’s work took on a style reminiscent of the American painter Edward Hopper, who is best known for his iconic Nighthawks(1942). Sunset, May 2004 was Mann’s last original piece for Easyriders. Mann reportedly created art for every issue between this and his final piece (below) published in May, 2004, along with additional illustrations for other magazines, book publishers, friends and collectors. It appeared in the magazine’s third issue, in October, 1971. Titled ‘ Frisco Nights‘, this was Dave Mann’s first-ever centerfold for Easyriders. His final piece, Sunset, appeared in the May 2004 issue. His first centerfold painting for Easyriders appeared in October, 1971, and Mann reportedly produced artwork – centerfold paintings, story illustrations and adverts – for every issue from that first to his retirement in 2003, shortly before he passed away. In 1971 Mann answered an advert for a ‘motorcycle artist’, discovered in the back pages of a new biker magazine called Easyriders, and spent the remainder of his working life as in-house artist for the publication. ![]() Thompson’s seminal work of ‘gonzo journalism’: Hell’s Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs (NYC, 1967, Random House) BTW, Buzzard appears in Bill Ray’s book of photographs – Hells Angels of Berdoo ’65: Inside the Mother Charter (NYC, 2010, Bill Ray/Blurb) – and is mentioned in Hunter S. Dave Mann in 1970, aboard the panhead chopper he purchased from Hells Angels member Buzzard. Another of Dave Mann’s early paintings for Ed ‘Big Daddy’ Roth features a wild desert party populated by outlaw bikers from numerous extant motorcycle clubs of the day. Roth recognized Mann’s potential, quickly bought up as many of the artist’s paintings as he could, and turned them into a profitable line of posters. Hollywood Run was the painting Dave Mann’s friend and club brother Tiny showed to Choppers publisher Ed ‘Big Daddy’ Roth. After selling some early paintings of biker life to Choppers magazine founder Ed ‘Big Daddy’ Roth (creator of the iconic ‘Rat Fink’ and a number of radically customized cars and motorcycles), Mann join the El Forastero Motorcycle Club ( forastero is ‘stranger’ or ‘foreigner’ in Spanish) as a charter member of the club’s Kansas City MO chapter. I don’t know who first attempted to paint or draw images of the biker life, but Dave Mann was certainly a pioneer. He had no problem exploiting the talents of young artists like Mann, and continued to make bank off Mann’s work long after Mann left his stable. Choppers publisher Ed ‘Big Daddy’ Roth was a wily self-promoter with a sharp eye for moneymaking opportunities. ….and all this to say ‘Hey! I got some cool stuff to show ya!’ An advert for prints of Dave Mann’s earliest posters. ….and even those pieces lost or destroyed live on in memory. ![]() However, barring catastrophic circumstances like the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, where – in addition to thousands of lives, including my cousin Eddie – an estimated $110 million worth of art was destroyed, or the Taliban’s deliberate destruction of The Buddhas of Bamiyan, art really is eternal…. I won’t bore you with the details – the information is all woefully outdated anyway – but I ended my piece with the words I wrote about tattoo removal – a topic I thought some readers might find interesting – after an encounter with a dermatologist at a Veteran’s Administration hospital in Hastings, Nebraska, who told me about a then-new technique for obliterating unwanted tattoos via laser. The very first article I ever published appeared in Easyriders, the groundbreaking magazine which was at once the LIFE, Saturday Evening Post and Reader’s Digest of the outlaw biker set. ![]() ![]() – – Martha Graham, Dancer and Choreographer – – ‘Art is eternal, for it reveals the inner landscape, which is the soul of man’ ![]()
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