Raymond Pettibon Donates Archive to the Getty

Raymond Pettibon has donated his personal archive to the Getty in Los Angeles. He first gained recognition in the Southern California punk scene in the 1970s and 1980s with his starkly drawn flyers and album covers. He then began to receive widespread acclaim in the 1990s for his illustrations of towering waves and tiny, darting surfers. The treasure trove will be kept at the Getty Research Institute Special Collections and includes handwritten notes, zine mockup pages, original screen prints and linocuts, screen-printed skateboard decks and a surfboard, concert flyers, and printed ephemera. Paint tubes, ink jars, and other items associated with his process will be donated to the Reference Collection of the Getty Conservation Institute.

Born Raymond Ginn in 1957, Pettibon is the brother of Black Flag guitarist and founder Greg Ginn. Having obtained a degree in economics from UCLA at the age of nineteen, Pettibon immersed himself in the local music scene, creating Black Flag’s logo—a stylized flag comprising four black bars—as well as flyers and album covers for the band and others, including Sonic Youth and the Minutemen. Pettibon’s style is characterized by bleak black-and-white drawings paired with snippets of text that frequently mock popular culture and lend the work a darkly humorous aspect. His wave illustrations, many of them in color, eschew the sardonic tone that distinguishes his other work, and instead center the power and calm of nature, often commenting on humanity’s relation to it through the presentation of a single, minuscule surfer riding a monster swell. Pettibon in 1992 donated a group of drawings, flyers, and zines to the Getty; in 2003–2004, he was artist in residence at the Getty Research Institute, where he produced work around the theme “Markets and Value.”

“This acquisition ensures that Pettibon’s legacy will be preserved and made accessible for future generations of scholars, curators, and artists, allowing them to better understand the intersection of culture, politics, and personal narrative in his work,” said Glenn Phillips, chief curator of the Getty Research Institute, in a statement.