"There’s the wave itself, which is more a part of the sublime, what we’d call nature…As the wave gets bigger it becomes more about man against nature. One doesn’t conquer either one. Man with nature, I guess. Small waves and big waves are different experiences."
—Raymond PettibonRaymond Pettibon’s Untitled (The lake of blood…), 2000, is a defining example of the artist’s most well-known Surfer series. Drawing from a vast range of influences, from global history to baseball, American politics to literature and comics, film noir to surfing, Pettibon’s works examine the values of American culture. Showcasing his signature interplay between image and text, the present work also features his virtuosic graphic handling. Inspiring awe and terror at once, the scene conjures the sublime of nature and man’s seeming conquest, freezing in time what may be an inevitable fate or a miraculous feat.

The Scribe and the Draughtsman

A self-taught artist, Pettibon found inspiration in the drawings by artists including Francisco Goya, Leonardo da Vinci, Honoré Daumier, Edward Hopper and John Sloan in forming his own unique style. Pettibon draws influence from the Renaissance master’s poetic combination of detailed illustration with handwritten text, further quoting from Leonardo’s writings in Untitled (The lake of blood…). Pettibon tucks Leonardo’s script below an oceanic mass, while further text rests atop seafoam on the brink of collapse, seemingly betraying the velocity and gravity of its surroundings. In so doing, Pettibon displays a draughtsmanly hand and an inventive knack for language, crossing lyrical wit and irony with historical reflection.

“We may say that the earth has a spirit of growth, and that its flesh is its soil, its bones are the successive strata of the rocks which form the mountains; its cartilage the tufa stone; its blood the springs of its waters”

“The lake of blood that lies about the heart is the ocean. ‘So vast and uncertain is she!’”

Leonardo da Vinci, A Deluge, c. 1517-18, Royal Collection Trust, London. Image: HIP / Art Resource, NY

Sourcing the Sublime

“Waves. To me, it’s natural,” Pettibon replied when asked about his favorite subject to draw. “It’s imagery that, for a lot of people around here anyway, is pornography… Each time I don’t know how it’s going to look, like it’s an ordeal or a challenge.”ⁱOn the subject of placing surfers amidst these giant swells, he explained, “I grew up near the beach. Violence at the shoreline can be worse than street violence sometimes. Local surfers are despised and hated by most other surfers throughout the world. There are good days, but if the waves aren’t coming, you’re sitting on the sand and praying for surf all year. Then you go and poach other people’s breaks."ⁱⁱ

Katsushika Hokusai, The Great Wave at Kanagawa (from a Series of Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji), circa 1930-1832. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Image: © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929

While they balance at the precipice of danger and exhilaration in most of Pettibon's surf images, his surfers never fall. They always carry a sense of laid-back confidence and optimism—a nod to the artist's Southern Californian disposition. Successfully conveying the pursuit for inner peace amongst a chaotic reality, Pettibon’s surfer series is a joyful achievement of poetic and philosophical representation.

ⁱ Raymond Pettibon, quoted in Nicholas Gazin, “Raymond Pettibon,” Vice Magazine, October 31, 2011

ⁱⁱ Ibid.
- Provenance
  Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner