Raymond Pettibon Sold at Auction Prices

b. 1957 -

(b Tucson, Arizona, 1957) American artist. The fertile yet undefined shores of Long Beach, California provide the philosophical and aesthetic foundation for Raymond Pettibon. Having earned a degree in Economics from UCLA, spending time as a mathematics teacher, and possessing a library shelf that contains the disparate musings of authors from Henry James to Marcel Proust, Pettibon's impressive body of work resists any strict ontological categorization. His imagery meanders and gleans across subjects, words and reference points, and is as likely to address sporting or cartoon subjects as issues of sexuality, politics or Nineteenth-century literature. While primarily a visual artist, Pettibon gained popularity for his association with Los Angeles’s punk-rock culture. Pettibon’s subject matter is wide-ranging, but most of his work encompasses text and drawing and recalls comic book illustration. Pettibon’s drawings embody themes of rebellion against authority and are heavily satirical of contemporary American culture. Major retrospectives of Pettibon’s work have been held at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. His work has also been exhibited internationally in Kassell, Tokyo, and Barcelona. (Credit: Sotheby’s, New York, Contemporary Art Day Sale, May 11, 2006, Lot 543).