John Severson’s Surf

 

Surf culture’s eighty-year-old founding father John Severson is still making waves. As a young painter, Severson captured the spirit of surf with pieces that range from the thrillingly vivid to the profoundly serene. While stationed in Oahu with the US Army, he started to explore film with cult movies Surf Safari and Surf Fever, and the success of these subsidized the launch of Surfer magazine, first published in 1959. It soon became the sport’s bible by pioneering a new visual language as a celebration of counter-cultural expression and individualism. John Severson’s Surf is a new book published by Maui gallerist Puka Puka, collecting paintings, prints and archival images that span six decades. Below, the octogenarian talks to Timothée Verrecchia about the everlasting inspiration of surf culture.

In the decades since you launched Surfer, the media landscape has radically changed. How do you feel about digital?
John Severson: I like it. the immediacy of the delivery, the ...more