Text by Yvon Chouinard, Steve Pezman, Steve Roper.
The story told by the photographs in California Surfing and Climbing in the Fifties takes place against the larger backdrop of postwar America: Truman and Eisenhower, the Korean War, the Cold War and the Red Scare. Young people were embracing new symbols of non-conformity: Elvis Presley, Jack Kerouac, Marlon Brando and James Dean. All along the California coast, surfing became popular as heavy balsawood boards were replaced with lightweight ones crafted from polyurethane foam, fiberglass and resin. Meanwhile, climbers descended on Tahquitz Rock in the south and Yosemite Valley to the north to test handcrafted equipment that would set new standards for safety, technique and performance. The photographs in this volume include images of legendary surfers such as Joe Quigg, Tom Zahn, Dale Velzy and Renny Yater, in locations such as Rincon, Malibu, South Bay, Laguna and San Onofre; and famous climbers such as Warren Harding, Royal Robbins and Wayne Merry among others, photographed mostly in the Yosemite Valley by the likes of Bob Swift, Alan Steck, Jerry Gallwas and Frank Hoover. Soaked in surf, sun and adrenaline, the photographs in California Surfing and Climbing in the Fifties depict the birth of an era and an exhilarating moment in Californian history.
Featured image is reproduced from California Surfing and Climbing in the Fifties.
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
Conde Nast Traveler
Both Tribes are captured in the black-and-white and color images in the book California Surfing and Climbing in the Fifties, out this month. The candid, casual snapshots depict early pioneers like Bob Simmons (who shaped some of the first Styrofoam surfboards) and Royal Robins, the first person to climb the vertical face of Half Dome, in 1957. Looking through these images, you'll find it hard not to fall under their spell - or daydream about buying a one-way ticket to the Golden State.
Details
Joel Patterson
While Jack Kerouac and co. were on the road, a new generation of casually stylish, deeply tanned daredevils were test-piloting the first modern surfboards and scaling Yosemite's last unclimbed granite faces. They're celebrated in 'California Surfing and Climbing in the Fifties,' featuring 102 photographs that capture legends--surfer Bev Morgan at play in the Malibu waves, rock climber Warren Harding ascending El Capitan--back when they were just kids with an itch for adventure.
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FROM THE BOOK
"The fifties were the easy years in California. With full employment from the Korean War, we were enjoying all the fruits of the fossil fuel culture. Gas was a quarter a gallon, used cars could be bought for twenty-five dollars, campgrounds were free, and you could easily live off the excess fat of society. Those of us in the counter cultures of climbing and surfing were as climber Pete Sinclair said, 'the last free Americans.'" - Yvon Chouinard, from his Introduction to California Surfing and Climbing in the Fifties
Join us August 13–15, 2023, from 9 AM–6 PM for Shoppe Object—New York’s most refined independent home and gift show—at Pier 36 in downtown Manhattan! Pre-register here! continue to blog
Once upon a time surfing and rock climbing were new, uncommodified and totally open frontiers. And well before the Summer of Love, surfers and climbers were part of the counter-culture, sharing mystical, physical thrills in uncrowded terrain. The gear was, by today’s standards, terrifyingly primitive—made by hand, and often improvised. Featured spreads are from California Surfing and Climbing in the Fifties, the classic mid-century photography collection that’s just come back into stock from T. Adler Books. In color and black-and-white, it brings together candid shots of the earliest pioneers as they documented their “firsts”: the first pintail surfboards, created by Joe Quigca, ca. 1949; the first ascent of the Northwest face of Half Dome, by Jerry Gallwas, 1957; Hobie's, the first structure built to house a surfboard manufacture and retail shop, 1954; Yvon Chouinard’s first pitons, created in his first blacksmith shop, in a chicken coop in his parents’ back yard, ca. 1957… For lovers of either sport, the captions in this volume provide both a concise history lesson and a love letter to simpler times. continue to blog
Once upon a time surfing and rock climbing were new, uncommodified and totally open frontiers. And well before the Summer of Love, surfers and climbers were part of the counter-culture, sharing mystical, physical thrills in uncrowded terrain. The gear was, by today’s standards, terrifyingly primitive—made by hand, and often improvised. Featured spreads are from California Surfing and Climbing in the Fifties, the classic mid-century photography collection that’s just come back into stock from T. Adler Books. In color and black-and-white, it brings together candid shots of the earliest pioneers as they documented their “firsts”: the first pintail surfboards, created by Joe Quigca, ca. 1949; the first ascent of the Northwest face of Half Dome, by Jerry Gallwas, 1957; Hobie's, the first structure built to house a surfboard manufacture and retail shop, 1954; Yvon Chouinard’s first pitons, created in his first blacksmith shop, in a chicken coop in his parents’ back yard, ca. 1957… For lovers of either sport, the captions in this volume provide both a concise history lesson and a love letter to simpler times. continue to blog
Bev Morgan's vintage snapshot of Californians Wendy Wagner and Tom Carlin on a drive around Kaena Point on the westernmost tip of Oahu, Hawaii, is reproduced from T. Adler's classic California Surfing and Climbing in the Fifties, one of our perennial summertime favorites. The caption? "A shortcut to the North Shore from the West side, the track along the jagged rocks got hairy in spots." continue to blog
Bill Feuerer's 1957 photograph of Mark Powell, Jerry Gallwas, himself and Don Wilson atop the 429 foot 'Totem Pole' rock spire in Monument Valley, Arizona, after their first ascent, is reproduced from T Adler's must-have photography collection, California Surfing and Climbing in the Fifties. In his introduction, Patagonia's Yvon Chouinard writes, "The fifties were the easy years in California. With full employment from the Korean War, we were enjoying all the fruits of the fossil fuel culture. Gas was a quarter a gallon, used cars could be bought for twenty-five dollars, campgrounds were free, and you could easily live off the excess fat of society. Those of us in the counter cultures of climbing and surfing were as climber Pete Sinclair said, 'the last free Americans.'" continue to blog
"Grass shacks were erected at Onfre’ and Windansea. Ukes and slack key strumming wafted in the breeze. These few weirdos had thrown off their parents’ depression-era security paranoia and had become beach bums; even the employed acted like they weren’t. Night jobs allowed free days to chase waves. They waited tables, tended bar, hustled. The point was to stay free to ride. The ride was the magic thing; being moved by a wave of cycling molecules that resulted from wind caused by the sun’s heat waves warming our atmosphere. It was a cosmic attachment that, though it went unspoken, was shared by those who had felt it firsthand. It was a secret thrill. The world was lame. We were not. They’d white-knuckle grasped onto a truth that was different than the one we’d discovered. Both theirs and ours were merely theoretical constructs about how to live life; that much we did know." Excerpt of text by Surfer's Journal founder Steve Pezman and Dick Metz's photograph of Hobie's (the first structure built to house surfboard manufacture and retail) on the Pacific Coast Highway, circa 1954, are reproduced from California Surfing and Climbing in the Fifties by T. Adler Books. continue to blog
FORMAT: Hbk, 10 x 12 in. / 84 pgs / illustrated throughout. LIST PRICE: U.S. $45.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $63 GBP £35.00 ISBN: 9781938922268 PUBLISHER: T. Adler Books AVAILABLE: 12/31/2013 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: In stock TERRITORY: WORLD
Published by T. Adler Books. Text by Yvon Chouinard, Steve Pezman, Steve Roper.
The story told by the photographs in California Surfing and Climbing in the Fifties takes place against the larger backdrop of postwar America: Truman and Eisenhower, the Korean War, the Cold War and the Red Scare. Young people were embracing new symbols of non-conformity: Elvis Presley, Jack Kerouac, Marlon Brando and James Dean. All along the California coast, surfing became popular as heavy balsawood boards were replaced with lightweight ones crafted from polyurethane foam, fiberglass and resin. Meanwhile, climbers descended on Tahquitz Rock in the south and Yosemite Valley to the north to test handcrafted equipment that would set new standards for safety, technique and performance. The photographs in this volume include images of legendary surfers such as Joe Quigg, Tom Zahn, Dale Velzy and Renny Yater, in locations such as Rincon, Malibu, South Bay, Laguna and San Onofre; and famous climbers such as Warren Harding, Royal Robbins and Wayne Merry among others, photographed mostly in the Yosemite Valley by the likes of Bob Swift, Alan Steck, Jerry Gallwas and Frank Hoover. Soaked in surf, sun and adrenaline, the photographs in California Surfing and Climbing in the Fifties depict the birth of an era and an exhilarating moment in Californian history.
