A-frame

Aaberg, Denny

Aaberg, Kemp

Abberton, Koby

Abbruzzi, Sid

Abellira, Reno

Abubo, Megan

academia and surfing

Adler, Tom

advertising and surfing

Aeder, Erik

aerial

Aguerre, Fernando

Aichner, Scott

Aikau, Clyde

Aikau, Eddie

Aipa, Ben

air-drop

airbrush

Airshow

Ala Moana

Alabama

alaia board

Alaska

alcohol and surfing

Alexander, Kala

Allen, Chuck

Alms, Paige

aloha shirt

Alter, Hobie

Alvarez, Pepe

Ancell, Kevin

Andaman Islands

Andersen, Lisa

Anderson, Craig

Anderson, Simon

Andino, Kolohe

Angel, Jose

angle

Angola

Angourie

Antarctica

Apocalypse Now

Arabian Sea

Aragon, Janice

Arakawa, Eric

Archbold, Matt

Arena, Eduardo

Ashton, Juan

Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP)

Atlantic Ocean

August, Robert

Aurness, Rolf

Auster, Ken

Australia

Avalon, Frankie

Azores

backdoor

backside

backside attack, Pipeline

backwash

bail out

Bain, Rob

Baja California

Baker, Bernie

Baker, Grant “Twiggy”

Baker, Tim

Bali

Ball, John “Doc”

Ballard, Bill

Ballard, Rochelle

balsa

Baltic Sea

Banks, Jim

Barbados

Barilotti, Steve

Barland, Michel

Barreda, Sergio “Gordo”

Barry, Michael

Bartholomew, Wayne

Baxter, Jackie

Bay of Bengal

Beach Boys, The

Beacham, Debbie

beachboys

beachbreak

Beachcomber Bills Grand Prix

Beachley, Layne

beavertail

Becker, Phil

Bedford-Brown, Stuart

Belgium

Bells Beach

Bendall, Ma and Pa

Bennett, Barry

Benson, Becky

Benson, Blanche

Benson, Linda

Bermuda

Bertlemann, Larry

Modern surfing and art have always been connected to one degree or another. Lyrically rendered images of the sport were used in a small number of 19th-century travel or adventure books, including a line drawing of three nude Polynesian nymph surfers used on the cover of American writer Charles Warren Stoddard's 1874 travelogue Summer Cruising in the South Seas. In the early decades of the 20th century, surfers often decorated their wooden boards with illustrations, usually painted or inked, but sometimes wood-burned or inlaid. Surfer magazine founder John Severson, however, is generally regarded as the modern-day inventor of "surf art." He began with surf-themed wood-block prints and cartooning as a high school student in the early '50s, then sharpened his skills by taking fine art courses in college (earning a master's in art education from Long Beach State), working in advertising design, and serving as a draftsman in the army. His surfing work was representational but highly stylized, with wavy-limbed surfers and needlelike surfboards set among color-washed skies and beaches. Severson was selling surf-themed watercolors and oils out of a Laguna Beach gallery by 1956, and four years later the debut issue of Surfer magazine was trimmed with more than a dozen of his ink drawings. While a small number of artists (including Bernhard Zalusky, Tom Yasuda, and Gene Studebaker) continued to produce mildly experimental surf-related art in the years to follow, surf art, then and now, has never defined a particular school or style; it's used instead as a catchall for any kind of art associated with surfing. Perhaps the type of work most connected with surf art is the airbrush fantasy landscape, popularized in the 1980s and '90s by Hawaiian artists Chris Lassen and Robert Wyland, often featuring planets, stars, galaxies, lava reefs, waterfalls, tropical fish, and perfectly formed empty waves. Individual Lassen canvases such as Mystic Eternity and Crystal Waters of Maui sold for up to $100,000. More subdued works of surf art were being produced by Ken Auster, Michael Cassidy, Avi Kiriaty, and others, much of it focusing on either the sport's preshortboard past or soothing images of the tropics. More challenging surf art has meanwhile been gathered and put on public display with some regularity, beginning with California-born Mike Parker's Surf- realism show—featuring blond-haired hypermuscled surfers—at the Fun Gallery in New York in 1987. Three years later, at Corcoran Gallery in Santa Monica, California, more than 100 artists, musicians, and surfers (including pop art luminary and former Malibu regular Billy Al Bengston, architect Frank Gehry, and Peter Max) each displayed a surfboard of their own design and making. Two ambitious and successful surf- themed art exhibitions were staged in the early '00s. Surf Trip, at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco in 2000, featured paintings, video, photographs, and surfboards, and included Jessica Dunne's Taraval Rights, an oversize oil showing the wintry urban surfscapes of San Francisco; Peter Schroff's Pink Whale, an all-in-one deluxe surfboard loaded with a Schlitz beer tap, TV, palm fronds, and chrome exhaust pipes; and Kevin Ancell's Aloha 'Oe, consisting of 25 life-size motorized polyurethane Hawaiian hula dancers outfitted with grass skirts, leis, and ukuleles, as well as machine guns, bloodied mouths, and hypodermic needles. Surf Culture: The Art History of Surfing opened at the Laguna Art Museum in the summer of 2002, and was even broader in scope, with artifacts dating back to the 18th century. A New York Times review of Surf Culture noted that the sport has become not just "a colorful part of American culture," but also "a symbol of cultural imperialism." The exhibition catalog suggested that surfing itself is nothing less than "painted arcs done without a brush on an ever- changing canvas." Celebrated New York artist Robert Longo was by that time creating huge canvases (up to six foot by 10 foot) of breaking waves. Other surfers who have made noteworthy contributions to surf art, or the art world in general, include Los Angeles installation artist Craig Stecyk, Orange County curator Bolton Colburn, sketch master Russell Crotty, and neoclassicist Sandow Birk. The Surf Gallery, the first retail store dedicated to surf art and surf photography, opened in 2001 in Laguna Beach. Surf art continued to have a participatory element: Surfer magazine sponsored a Surfer Art Contest in 1969 (and later held a number of reader collage contests), while six-time world champion Kelly Slater started a decorative trend in 1994 when he began using opaque paint pens to illustrate the decks of his boards. See also Kevin Ancell, Ken Auster, Sandow Birk, David Carson, Rick Griffin, Avi Kiriaty, Chris Lassen, Bill Ogden, Rick Rietveld, Peter Schroff, Craig Steyck, surf cartoons and comics.

surf art

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Encyclopedia of Surfing

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Encyclopedia of Surfing

History of Surfing

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