The Fullerton Museum Center’s reopening showcases a diverse culmination of art through new exhibits that work to tell the stories and break down the creative processes of their artists. 

“Crazy World Ain’t It: The Art of John Van Hamersveld,” is the striking and vivid focus of the museum, with Van Hamersveld’s multidisciplinary creative works of over 60 years spanning through the entirety of the main gallery, making every step through the space a step through his story. 

Van Hamersveld is best known for his posters and album art, having made album covers for the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, and for designing the Fatburger logo.

The exhibition was curated by his wife Alida Post, a long-time art dealer and gallery director, and will be available through Feb. 22, 2026. It shows a wide range of Van Hamersveld’s artistic pieces and displays them from their infancy to their final drafts. 

“The reason I curated this show is because we haven’t had an exhibit of John’s where you actually see the process,” Post said. “Especially in Fullerton, with the university, I wanted people to see ‘Here’s the sketch, here’s the drawing and here’s the final art,’ because if you look at a poster, I couldn’t explain to people that he draws because everything starts with Sharpie drawing.” 

With such a unique opportunity to see so many notorious and recognizable pieces, many patrons expressed awe and surprise at the breadth of his work. Georgette Collard, the museum curator and an art history graduate student at Cal State Fullerton, assisted in curating the showcase and shared the reactions that many had while walking through Van Hamersveld’s life’s work.

“There’s so many things that people didn’t know he created that are iconic,” Collard said. “Of course, they know ‘The Endless Summer,’ but then when you see his whole repertoire of work for the past 60 years, you’re like, ‘Woah, I know this. I know that image. I know that album cover,’ and you realize it’s all the same artist.”

Van Hamersveld’s works have a unique style that converge his mastery of skills in illustration, photography and design, which he got a foundation in during his time spent in university. He graduated from Art Center College of Design and later attended California Institute of the Arts, where his instructors tested his abilities and set him up for future positions.

“They decided that the students should be multidisciplined, so they had music, design and art,” Van Hamersveld said. “I was able to take photographs and was able to make paintings and I was able to draw commercial things, so that sort of set it up. But it was really ‘The Endless Summer,’ which I did in 1964, where I began working for Surfer Magazine and I became the art director.”

Van Hamersveld created the bold, neon movie poster to advertise for documentary filmmaker Bruce Brown’s surf film “The Endless Summer” prior to his completion of school. However, this unexpected headstart catapulted his vivacious career.

“I come out of art school, and I get a hold of the poster – take it to Capitol Records, and I showed it to an art director there, and he said, ‘Wow, you know, I think I have a job for you,’” Van Hamersveld said. “Three weeks later, I go up the elevator, down the hallway, open the door and there’s a guy in a blue suit there, who brought the Beatles to the label. He looks at me and he says, ‘You’re gonna work for me, and you can’t turn me down,’
 so I became his art director.”

Van Hamersveld then began working as head of design at Capitol Records from 1965 to 1968, designing over 300 album covers for artists like the Beatles, Blondie, the Rolling Stones and Kiss.

Fullerton Museum Center’s staff worked alongside their longtime partner Landau Traveling Exhibitions to organize and display Van Hamersveld’s work. Jeffrey Landau, owner of Landau Traveling Exhibitions, has his own appreciation for Van Hamersveld’s pieces.

“I’ve known about John’s work for a long time, so I was waiting for the opportunity to get him a museum show,” Landau said. “The staff at the Fullerton Museum Center is just so great to realize that this was something where they could showcase an artist that had local ties, but also had the international scope.” 

All of the hands involved in bringing Van Hamersveld’s lifetime collection of creative works together for this exhibit used his remarkable story to guide them. “Crazy World Ain’t It: The Art of John Van Hamersveld,” will be traveling with Landau Traveling Exhibitions in 2026 following its time at the Fullerton Museum Center.

“We came home with this,” Van Hamersveld said. “This show goes to New Mexico after this point, so maybe it’ll go to other places. It depends on the publicity that probably comes out of here that would shape what happens in the future.”