Born : 1957Documented citizenships : United States
Raymond Pettibon makes drawing a space where image and language meet: his compositions draw on the codes of popular and commercial culture and the mass media, as well as on classical literary texts. This movement between registers informs a practice that explores the visual and critical potential of drawing, continuing traditions of satire and social critique. His drawings are made primarily in ink on paper; colour and collage are used less frequently, as accents. Untitled (One breath more and darkness would have descended.), dated 1990, offers a material example: this pen-and-brush ink drawing measures 43.3 × 33.5 cm.
Born Raymond Ginn in Tucson, Arizona, on 16 June 1957, the artist lives and works in New York. Among Pettibon’s works recorded by the Art Institute of Chicago are Untitled, dated 1984, and Self-Portraits My Ass, from 1998.
His work has been presented in the United States and internationally, including in solo exhibitions at Kunstmuseum Luzern in 2012 and Kumu Kunstimuuseum in Tallinn in 2015. In 2019, Kunst Museum Winterthur brought his works into dialogue with those of Honoré Daumier in the exhibition Daumier – Pettibon. A solo presentation entitled Underground was subsequently shown at the Musée Picasso in Paris in 2025–2026. Pettibon also participated in the Whitney Biennial in 1991, 1993, 1997 and 2004. David Zwirner gallery cites the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin among the collections that hold his works.
This profile brings together identity references for Raymond Pettibon and paintings, drawings and works on paper documented in auction catalogues.
9 references are documented at Kornfeld, Sotheby’s, Germann, Lempertz, Dobiaschofsky, Piguet. Each record links to its source; the amounts are not a general valuation of the artist’s work.
Works recorded at auction
Sotheby’s · Lot 96
Untitled (Captain, these Moors shall...)
Raymond Pettibon, b. 1957. Untitled (Captain, these Moors shall…). Ink on paper, 45.7 × 30 cm, 18 × 11¾ in. Executed in 1987.
Original catalogue wording
Untitled (Captain, these Moors shall...) Raymond Pettibon b. 1957 Untitled (Captain, these Moors shall...) ink on paper 45.7 by 30 cm. 18 by 11¾ in. Executed in 1987.
SwissArtGallery documentary note based on the cited sources. Titles, media and qualifications are provided in the profile language; the original catalogue wording remains available in each record. Documentation updated : 2026-10-19
