Owsley Bear Stanley

Art Brokerage: Owsley Bear Stanley Artist, b. 1935-2011. Owsley Stanley (born Augustus Owsley Stanley III) also known as Bear, was a figure of the San Francisco Bay Area counter-culture, playing a pivotal role in the counterculture of the 1960s. As a crafts-person, he became best known simply as 'Owsley' the LSD "cook" (underground chemist). Under the professional name of "Bear", he worked with the psychedelic rock band the Grateful Dead's international fan "family". Bear was an early soundman for The Grateful Dead, a band he met when Ken Kesey invited them to an Owsley Acid test party. As their sound engineer, Bear frequently recorded live tapes behind his mixing board. Stanley was the first private individual to manufacture mass quantities of LSD. Between 1965 and 1967, Stanley produced more than 1.25 million doses of LSD. Stanley was confined to Federal prison from 1970 to 1972, after a Federal judge intervened by revoking his release from the 1967 case. Stanley took advantage of the opportunity there to learn metalwork and jewelry-making. A naturalized Australian citizen since 1996, Stanley and his wife Sheilah lived in the bush of Far Northern Tropical Queensland where he worked to create sculpture, much of it wearable art. Stanley died in an automobile accident in Australia on March 12, 2011.