Stanley Mouse was born in California on October 10, 1940. His father was an animator with Disney Studios who worked on Snow White. Quiet and always drawing sketches of monster-driven muscle cars in class, Stanley earned his pen name, Mouse in the seventh grade. As soon as he began signing with his pen name, he became instantly famous at thirteen when he found a niche in the Detroit hot rod culture by detailing extraordinary paint jobs on vehicles.
Stanley received his formal training at Detroit’s School for the Society of Arts and Crafts which was connected to the Detroit art museum. He dropped out to follow a higher calling to do rock posters in San Francisco during the sixties wartime era of social revolution, political passion and musical innovation. History was made when Stanley met Alton Kelley – they collaborated for over 15 years and changed the course of advertising art forever.
Producing posters for the Fillmore Auditorium and the Avalon Ballroom, the art promoting the San Francisco scene became instant collectibles and went far beyond the local scene to reach museums worldwide. Art and music came together in images associated with the The Family Dog, Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Steve Miller. Then on to Jimi Hendrix, Journey, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles and Blind Faith. Mouse and Kelley also did various album covers, including the first eight album covers for the Grateful Dead, the cover art for Steve Millers album Book of Dreams won a Grammy Award in 1977.
Stanley went on to explore fine art and took up classical art forms and oil painting. His landscapes and figurative works express the more subtle and finer aspects of life and round out his body of work with depth and beauty. Stanley's artwork is included in private and public collections including the Oakland Museum and The Hermitage. In a local ceremony, Stanley was honored and named as the Sonoma Art Treasure in 1994.