Hank Pitcher
American, 1949-
Surfers: Scott and Kathy, 1977-78
oil on canvas
84 x 72 in.
SBMA, Gift of Pam and Tim Schiffer
1991.67
Hank Pitcher with surfboad, n.d
RESEARCH PAPER
Hank Pitcher was painting scenes of California beach life before painting beach and surfer scenes was cool. In 1977 surfing was characterized by silly Hollywood exploitation films like Beach Blanket Bingo, 1965, or was portrayed as an evil cult. Pitcher saw it differently. Surfers: Scott and Kathy was shown in the artist's first solo exhibition at the Orlando Gallery in Los Angeles in 1973 as part of a series of large canvases depicting beach and surfer life. The show was a critical success and influenced a number of young artists at the time. Where painting the surfer and beach culture was new and regarded as very avant-garde and uniquely Californian at that time when East Coast painters had been dominating, Pitcher's paintings brought California beach culture into the art world as a serious subject.
In this very large painting, 6 by 7 feet, the viewer sees two lovely and fit young people naturalistically represented; one could recognize them on the street from this depiction. They are carefully positioned on either side of a centrally located, intensely red surfboard with a lightning bolt on it. Stepping up to view this life-sized portrait of the two almost-naked people is like standing in front of two life-size statues, perhaps of gods. And the lightning bolt is like a bolt of energy thrown by Zeus or Thor. It captivates the imagination of the viewer immediately. If one looks closely, it appears both as if the viewer is looking straight ahead at regular people and also at the same time looking up, perhaps at Gods. They are clearly very specific people but they are in an ambiguous setting. While the people and their bathing suits and the surfboard all are very detailed and realistic, the background is impressionistic; the viewer cannot tell if the background is surf or haze or sky. The two surfers do not look at each other or at the viewer; they gaze off at something outside of our view. Their hands are on their hips in a powerful pose; they own the spot on which they stand. Scott looks up to the heavens and Kathy gazes off into the distance to the left and behind the viewer. They are in this world but appear to belong to another world.
In real life, Scott and Kathy were college friends of the artist; however in the painting they are also Adam and Eve. The central element, that red surfboard, sporting a Jerry Lopez Lightening Bolt emblem, which is the surf culture equivalent of a Ferrari, is also the fruit from the tree of knowledge. Surprisingly, Pitcher's original inspiration for this painting was how much he liked the colors and pattern of Kathy's bathing suit; he thought it would be great fun to paint it. Scott and Kathy were friends of his from school and the beach who were dating when he started the painting. A little while into the painting they got engaged, and he painted in her engagement ring. Then they got married and he added wedding bands. Before he had finished the painting they got divorced, and he painted out the rings. (Source: the artist, conversation)
Hank Pitcher regards the beach, portrayed as it is in this painting, as a sometimes-sacred space. Its boundaries are always changing, right on the line between land and sea that can symbolize the conscious and the unconscious. And as the tide goes in and out, the (nearly) nude figures on the beach can seem either mortal or divine. The perspective in the painting, he says, is purposely ambiguous; it is not clear if the horizon line is at their feet or above their heads. This suggests that the background can be read as either ocean or sky, and the figures are depicted so that the viewer looks up, as one would look up at the Gods, and also straight on as one looks at fellow terrestrials.
This painting was one of a series of life size figures that Hank Pitcher worked on during two or three years illustrating how young people standing on the beach dressed only in bathing suits self-consciously take poses that suggest mythological narratives: Adam and Eve, or Athena and Apollo. The artist reported that the inspiration for this painting is directly related to the SBMA collection of antiquities, which he has studied since he took art lessons in the museum as a child in the 1950s. He continues to be fascinated with mythological and archetypal themes.
Hank Pitcher was born in 1949 in Pasadena California, and his family moved to then rural Isla Vista in the 1950s. A lifelong surfer, who still surfs daily, Hank makes a habit of hitting the waves before he sets out to paint for the day in his ocean-side studio of many years. He has found so much richness in the beauty of the landscape and the unique beach and surf culture around him that he has been happy to paint it, almost to the exclusion of any other subject. He and his family have lived in the Santa Barbara area of central California where he has taught painting since 1970 at the University of California at Santa Barbara in the College of Creative Studies, where he studied painting himself. He has enjoyed commercial success from early on. As a leading figure in early California beach and surf painting, his paintings are imbued with obvious love and fascination with this place.
Hank Pitcher studied in New York with Paul Georges. In his own words: "Paul Georges was a great friend and mentor. I met Paul Georges on Long Island in 1971. As a New York School painter he was an example of how painting, and people, and paintings of people can be heroic. He introduced me to ideas about, and traditions of western painting that he learned from his teachers Hans Hoffman and Leger. He also introduced me to his artist friends, including Fairfield Porter and Willem de Kooning. (The SBMA owns a very important Fairfield Porter that I wish was on permanent display.) I learned a lot visiting their studios and hanging out with other artists in the Hamptons in the 1970s and early 1980s."
"In the "advanced" academic and critical art world of the late 1960s and 1970s it was popular to argue that "painting is dead," especially figurative painting. Of course that was not true, but museums were not showing a lot of painting, and very little figurative painting, unless it was considered Pop or another type of conceptual art. As a student and young artist I was working against the grain. I wanted to be a part of contemporary painting, about contemporary people, landscape, and narrative. I wanted to go forward from Cezanne and Seurat, not backwards from Monet like a lot of California and East Coast Impressionism. I became friends with Charles Garabedian in the early 1970s, and he and Georges exemplified what I thought (and still think) is exciting and possible in painting going forward. Their work is inclusive, and informed by the great painters of the past, especially Piero della Franchesca."
"As a student, I was told that to be a serious artist I had to move to Los Angeles, or, preferably, New York. I refused. I wanted to make serious art in and about Santa Barbara - about my time and place. But I knew that to keep from being provincial, I had to understand and speak the language of the art centers of the world, so I spent a lot of time in New York and Los Angeles. I was also fortunate to work with Bay Area Figurative artist Paul Wonner at the College of Creative Studies when he lived in Santa Barbara. That school of painting, that includes David Park , Richard Diebenkorn , Elmer Bischoff , Wayne Thiebaud , and James Weeks had an idiosyncratic and regional character that appealed to me. Michael Drury, a well-regarded central coast "plein aire" painter, is a great friend who I paint with regularly that I did not really know that well until he started taking classes at UCSB's College of Creative Studies after I started teaching there."
Pitcher is a storyteller. "The paintings form a set.... like a small group of stories....but mostly they are a refined view of the California coastal legend". He is a painter who has devoted his long painting career to capturing the lifestyle and atmosphere of the central coast of California. These paintings represent pride of place and richly describe the artist's sense of place; he is very much a man of his time and place.
Occasionally Pitcher works on commissions, but most of his work is intended for exhibition in galleries and museums. He is most interested in making art that is public, and democratic, and without compromise. He is currently at work on oil sketches for a series of very large, botanically detailed scenes of the landscape around the coastal area for which he obviously holds so much affection.
Prepared for the Santa Barbara Museum of Art Docent Council by Barbara Boyd, March 31, 2012