Paint tubes and ink jars related to the artist’s techniques will be housed in the museum’s Reference Collection.
(photo courtesy of The Getty)

The Getty has acquired the archive of American artist Raymond Pettibon, who became known in the 1980s for his work in the Southern California music scene, particularly through posters and album covers, and later gained widespread recognition in the fine art world.

Pettibon’s distinctive visual language incorporates an eclectic range of American cultural and historical references, blending elements from popular culture, literature, sports, politics and religion. His most iconic works synthesize crashing waves, surfers and sardonic text extracted and repurposed from literary sources.

The archive was donated to the Getty Conservation Institute’s Reference Collection and Getty Research Institute Special Collections. The Reference Collection will house paint tubes and ink jars related to his materials and techniques, while the bulk of the archive will be housed at the Getty Research Institute. The archive includes handwritten notes, zine mockup pages, original screen prints and linocuts, screen printed skateboard decks and a surfboard, concert flyers and printed ephemera for exhibitions and events.

The collection significantly enhances the Getty’s collections of reference materials and archives relating to Pettibon, who has previously donated drawings, zines and concert flyers. Overall, the archive builds on the Getty’s collections of Southern California art history, while also moving the collections chronologically forward with an artist whose works developed in the 1980s and 1990s. The materials will be particularly useful to conservators and scholars, as they reveal much about Pettibon’s working methods, processes and use of source materials. Pettibon was artist in residence at the GRI for its 2003-04 theme year “Markets and Value,” and the archive includes extensive notes and research conducted during the residency.

“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

Pettibon, whose birth name was Raymond Ginn, was born in 1957 in Tucson, Arizona, and primarily grew up in Hermosa Beach. The artist’s nom de plume, Pettibon, sometimes spelled Pettibone in very early works, was coined by his father.

Throughout the late 1970s, Pettibon immersed himself in drawing, reading and writing. He became involved with the music and bands associated with his brother, Greg Ginn, founder of the punk rock band Black Flag. Pettibon designed Black Flag’s iconic four bar logo and contributed drawings for the band’s concert flyers and album covers, as well as for other bands such as Sonic Youth and Minutemen. Working across media including prints, drawings, paintings, video, zines and Xerox art, Pettibon is among the most prominent artists to emerge from Los Angeles in the 1980s and 1990s. In addition to the Getty, his work is in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, as well as museum around the world.

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