Iconic Surf Artist Presents Historic Works at the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum
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Rick Sharp and a pair of sharp ladies! Photo: Bissell
The Artwork of Legend Rick Sharp
It’s been almost forty years since surf-poster-artist Rick Sharp was in the midst of creating a decade’s worth of his back-to-nature art. His whimsical, storybook-styled pen and ink drawings became banners for a new generation of nature lovers and reflected an art form that was born and flourished in Santa Barbara during the seventies.
On display at the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum is a collection of Sharp’s early surf posters; starting with the Artist’s first Channel Islands Surfboards poster. We are told some of Sharp’s posters for Channel Islands Surfboards are still yet to surface and his original logo, the oval shaped pen and ink of the Channel Islands, which is still in use today on surfboards — is missing from the display. Of note is a Channel Islands Surfboards calendar which shows the first use of the hexagon logo (albeit small and in one corner of the poster) which would later become an international symbol for the most popular surfboards in the world. Also noteworthy is a circular poster done for one of Santa Barbara’s earliest surf shops, “Surf N’ Wear,” which is still being produced by The Beach House as a t-shirt design.
The show opens April 28 with the Sea Festival and will be on display through May 1, 2015. See more of Rick’s work by visiting www.RickSharp.com
Rick still stylin’ at Rincon after all these years… Photo: Bissell
