Surf Cat

Artist Phil Roberts was commissioned to design early renditions of wave pools back in the 1990s, man-man creations that aimed at mimicking the ocean’s force.

But the secret designs for artificial surfing waves couldn’t be let out of the vault.

Fast-forward a couple of decades and an explosion of such surfer amusement parks have been popping up around the world. Now, some of them with design patents expiring, Roberts gets to finally unveil what were early ideas behind the cutting-edge technology.

Roberts, a Florida transplant who makes Newport Beach his home, will be launching a 40-year surf art retrospective at the Huntington Beach Art Center starting Saturday, July 27. It will showcase his career, which has ranged from apparel to surf art that fetches in the tens of thousands of dollars to early wave-pool designs that are becoming a reality.

The show, “Rietveld & Roberts: Masters of Surf Art,” similarly will showcase the artwork of Roberts’ friend and rival Rick Rietveld, of Newport Beach, also well known in the surf world.

“We’ve been ‘frenemies,’ friendly competitors, since I was 19 years old and I first saw him at the Florida surf trade show in 1990,” Roberts said. “We’ve been competing against each other for 40 years now. That’s just our nature, we’re both highly competitive. We showed up at the surfing magazines around the same time. When I showed up, he was like, ‘Who is this guy?’ And I said the same.”

Rietveld will show the Maui & Sons illustrations he did over the past 30 years, while Roberts will showcase the Billabong work he’s created for apparel and trophies, such as the revered Pipe Masters trophy he’s made each year with surfer and shaper Gerry Lopez.

“It’s a nice comparison of how we’re similar, but not similar,” Roberts said.

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The retrospective gives Roberts, now 58, a chance to look back at his career and how much surfing has changed in the four decades since he started doodling waves on his jeans as a teenager.

“I never dreamed I could make a living at it,” he said. “It’s mind-blowing.”

Among the pencil sketches he will show are designs he did in the early- and mid-90s that became the original concept illustrations for Kelly Slater’s surf park. The final product, revealed last year, turned out much different than Slater’s early plans.

“The inventors and all their ideas, they are all thrilled that stuff we’ve been working on for such a long time, it’s for the first time being seen in public,” Roberts said.

Sketches from Tom Morey, who famously created the boogie board but also had many more inventions through the years, also will be on display. His idea for a wave pool was called the Wave Cannon.

Roberts has helped design wave parks in Singapore and South Africa, as well as one of three parks planned for the Palm Desert area. He has enough to cover a 40-foot-long wall in color illustrations and pencil drawings.

The drawings aren’t just a look into surfing’s past, but showcase how art and science can intersect.

“You get to see how and when the original ideas were generated,” he said. “It’s a fun marriage of art, ocean science and aqua engineering that brings a different dimension to the show.”

Looking toward the future, Roberts also has been working with World Tour surfer Courtney Conlogue, of Santa Ana, to reach audiences through her art.

The duo is hosting a private art show Monday, July 29 at The Board Room in Newport Beach. Before the show launch, Conlogue will host a contest through social media to teach 25 kids how to paint waves.

“Rietveld & Roberts: Masters of Surf Art” opens from 6:30 to 9 p.m. Saturday at the Huntington Beach Art Center, 538 Main Street, Huntington Beach.