Surfing

Purchase Original Oil Paintings and Archival Quality Canvas Giclée Prints

Surf art paintings and surf prints of locations in California and Hawaii.

Surf art or surfing art has become an increasingly popular genre of art. The art created by Steve Simon for this collection features recognizable destinations throughout California and Hawaii. The most popular surf print in the collection is “The Point, San Onofre,” featuring a Woody and classic Volkswagen Van. Other surf scenes of California include:

• a surfer at sunset near the pier in Pismo Beach

• a boogie boarder at The Wedge in Newport Beach

• young skimboarders in Laguna Beach

• young girls standing on boogie boards in Laguna Beach

• teenage skimboarders in Laguna Beach

• a boogie boarder surveying the waves at sunset near the Huntington Beach Pier

• a surfer with shortboard watching girls go by in Dana Point

• boys with shortboards near the Huntington Beach Pier at sunset

• a panorama of a lone surfer heading out south of the Huntington Beach Pier at sunset

• a nostalgic surf painting of longboarders, including Duke Kahanamoku, on Corona del Mar

• a skimboarder in action on the beach near the Montage Resort

• a boogie boarder heading out near the Ritz Carlton in Dana Point

The collection of surf artwork also includes the following scenes of Hawaii:

• a longboarder in Haleiwa on the north shore of Oahu

• a skimboarder on Kaanapali Beach, Maui

As a native of suburban Chicago, the artist was not exposed to the surf culture until arriving in California at age 29. To most Midwesterners surfing is a symbol of the California allure. There seems to be something in most of us that feels and answers to the tug of the tide, even if we are not apt to immerse ourselves in it. Surfing seems to epitomize this magnetism we feel. It is for this reason that surfing captures our imagination whether or not we feel the urge ourselves to get barreled or hang ten.

For those who do take up the sport, motivations range from thrill seeking to good exercise to socializing on up to spiritual enrichment. Indeed there is something to immersing oneself in what nature deals and being in harmony with it.

Surfing, referred to as the “sport of kings,” was an ancient tradition in Hawaii. According to “The History of Surfing From Captain Cook to the Present” by Ben Marcus:

“Surfboard riding was as layered into the society, religion and myth of the islands as baseball is to the modern United States. Chiefs demonstrated their mastery by their skill in the surf, and commoners made themselves famous (and infamous) by the way they handled themselves in the ocean. Anthropologists can only guess at the origin and evolution of wave-riding and surfboard construction in Polynesian culture, since there's no certainty about the timeline and movements of the Polynesians.”

And so it is that this activity—part sport, part art, part counter-culture, part spiritual immersion—attracts us and arouses our curiosity. Just as indeterminate as its history, defining surfing is as individual as the person partaking in it or observing it. This, above all, is what makes expressing it through art so challenging and pleasing.

Whether you are an avid surfer or arm’s length spectator, we hope you enjoy these surf art paintings and surf art prints.