Raymond Pettibon - Editions & Works on Paper New York Thursday, February 15, 2024 | Phillips

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  • “Surfing describes a society, and the people in it. I’ve done a lot of large drawings and prints of that imagery. It has that epic nature, that sublime nature, that almost asks you to reproduce it full sized on the wall.”
    —Raymond Pettibon

    Raymond Pettibon grew up in Hermosa Beach, California, a location implicit to the wave and surfing images that have become his trademark motifs. With a short narrative written above the wave’s crest, the present work showcases Pettibon’s signature interplay between image and text, as well as his virtuosic graphic handling of water. As a small surfer catches an immense wave, Untitled (When the Ground Becomes Hard and Firm) inspires awe and terror at once, conjuring the sublime of nature and man’s attempt to match it, freezing in time what may be an inevitable fate or a miraculous feat.

     

     Katsushika Hokusai, The Great Wave at Kanagawa (from a Series of Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji), circa 1830-32. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929.

    Looking at Pettibon's great wave, one is reminded of Katsushika Hokusai's Under the Wave off Kanagawa, part of a series of ukiyo-e prints representing Japan's national culture and spirit. Otherwise known as The Great Wave, Hokusai’s print features a breaking swell that is about to strike a trio of boats as if it were an enormous sea monster, symbolizing the irresistible force of nature and the weakness of humans. The swell consumes the work’s surface, dwarfing both Mount Fuji and the boats to convey an overwhelming sense of tension and dominance. The insignificance of man in the face of nature is heavily explored by a multitude of different cultures across various eras, with sources as diverse as the aforementioned Hokusai, to Song dynasty art exploring human survival against natural elements, to the “great American novel” Moby-Dick, the latter of which Pettibon clearly had a penchant for, as he created a limited-edition cover for the famous novel in 2020.

     

    “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.” Multilayered meanings arise from the all-consuming force of waves, in which the inconsequence of humankind is pitted against the magnanimity of Mother Nature. Poignantly, Pettibon’s surfers, whilst they balance at the precipice of danger and exhilaration, never fall. Rather, they carry a sense of laid-back confidence and optimism—a nod to the artist's Southern Californian disposition.

     

    This confidence is apparent in the text accompanying this surfing scene: “When the ground becomes hard and firm, I know where I am (the spectator knows where he is); nothing, in other words, need (no other words or lines can or would) prevent the March (and etching on) from being straight and true and strong.”

    • Provenance

      Private Collection, New York

107

Untitled (When the Ground Becomes Hard and Firm)

2002
Etching and aquatint with hand-coloring in blue acrylic, on Rives BFK paper, with full margins.
I. 16 1/4 x 12 1/2 in. (41.3 x 31.8 cm)
S. 29 5/8 x 22 1/4 in. (75.2 x 56.5 cm)

Signed, dated and annotated 'A/P' in pencil (an artist's proof, the edition was 30 without hand-coloring, there were also approximately 7 artist's proofs), published by GEM, Museum of Contemporary Art, The Hague, Netherlands, framed.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$10,000 - 15,000 

Sold for $13,970

Editions & Works on Paper

New York Auction 15 February 2024