Homo americanus

About this book

Raymond Pettibon is the foremost draftsman of his generation, and one of America's most important contemporary artists. Approaching high and low subject matter with equal appetite and comfort, Pettibon plumbs the depths of American sexuality, politics, subcultures, mores, and intellectual histories through themes ranging from Shakespeare to Gumby, surfers to the Bible, baseball to German Romanticism. Published on the occasion of his major European traveling retrospective at the Deichtorhallen Hamburg - Sammlung Falckenberg, Raymond Pettibon: Homo Americanus presents over six hundred works from every part of the artist's career, the majority of which have never been shown before. Arranged thematically in thirty-two chapters, this unique catalogue charts the appearance and development of the themes that have come to define Pettibon's expansive oeuvre. Different sections are introduced with excerpts from interviews conducted with the artist. The book includes a complete facsimile of his first artists' book, Captive Chains - almost entirely unavailable for decades - in addition to numerous early drawings completed with his nephew, record covers, flyers, and sections dedicated to collages and drawings from the 1980s to today.