Surfer Magazine Jantzen Back Cover Ad Painting, September 1972

1972. Ephemera. Near fine. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Bill Ogden, a Southern California painter, defined the surf art look of the era. Some of his most visible work was done for the Portland, Oregon, swimwear company, Jantzen, which held the back cover ad space in Surfer Magazine for a number of years.

This is the original artwork (mixed media with gouache and possibly silkscreen and/or airbrush) done for the September 1972 ad, which promoted Jantzen's Fire & Rain line of swimsuits and beachwear. The ads always combined Ogden's artwork with photographs. In this painting, the blond surfer's shirt is painted plain tan, with the intention of having Jantzen's graphic designers superimpose an actual shirt design, which they did. In the final ad, they also added a photograph of a man surfing a tube to the background, where Ogden had painted a starry night.

True to Ogden's artistry and rather unusual for this kind of illustration art, the entire piece works as an image. Unless you have the Surfer Magazine ad at hand, you might not even realize that parts of the image were intended to be covered up in the finished ad.

Original Ogden paintings from this era seldom come on the market (smaller works have recently sold for $5,000 and $5,500). Original paintings of some of his most iconic early 1970s work, like this, are almost unheard of.

Painted image: 17-1/2 by 22-1/2 inches on a larger sheet of watercolor paper. Signed at lower right margin. The paper shows very minor foxing; a bit of flaking to the center of the stars, else a bright example of a classic work. Archivally framed under plexiglass to 27 by 32. (Not examined out of frame).