Von Franco (born May 29, 1952) is a self-taught American artist associated with the Lowbrow art movement and

Kustom Kulture Kustom Kulture is a neologism used to describe the artworks, vehicles, hairstyles, and fashions of those who have driven and built custom cars and motorcycles in the United States of America from the 1950s through today. It was born out of the ...

. He became involved at an early age in the burgeoning hot rod and Kustom Kulture scene of

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most populous urban a ...

. His skill at drawing hot rod and monster art, popular in Kustom Kulture, caught the attention of

Ed "Big Daddy" Roth Ed "Big Daddy" Roth (March 4, 1932 – April 4, 2001) was an American artist, cartoonist, illustrator, pinstriper and custom car designer and builder who created the hot rod icon Rat Fink and other characters. Roth was a key figure in S ...

, for whom Von Franco later worked. Von Franco became a builder of custom automobiles, gaining notoriety for building clones of

Norm Grabowski Norman Grabowski (February 5, 1933 – October 12, 2012) was an American hot rod builder and actor. The heavy-set crew cut-wearing Grabowski appeared in minor roles in many films produced by Albert Zugsmith and Walt Disney. He was Polish-Americ ...

's Kookie, Kookie II and Lightning Bug t-buckets, as well as a clone/expansion of the Golden Rod. Von Franco is also known for his distinctive

pinstriping Pin striping (pinstriping) is the application of a very thin line of paint or other material called a pin stripe, and is generally used for decoration. Freehand pin stripers use a specialty brush known as a pinstriping brush. Fine lines in texti ...

and hand-lettering techniques. He was also the guitarist in the surf band The Bomboras and played the vibraphone in The Hyperions. He designed two bicycles for

GT Bicycles GT Bicycles is an American company that designs and manufactures BMX, mountain, and road bicycles. GT is a division of the Dutch conglomerate Pon Holdings, which also markets Cannondale, Schwinn, Mongoose, IronHorse, DYNO, and RoadMaster bicyc ...

, The Von Franco (orange) and the Taboo Tiki. He is a member of the Beatniks Koolsville car club. Von Franco was featured in the 1995 documentary ''Desperate Generation'' and is the subject of the biographical documentaries ''I Was a Teenage Monster Shirt Painter'' and "The Car That Ate My Brain" and featured in the Kustom Kulture documentary ''Flake and Flames''. He is featured on the cover and interior of ''My Freedamn! Volume 6'', a vintage collectibles series by Rin Tanaka. 35 of his airbrushed sweatshirts were promoted by

Levi Levi (; ) was, according to the Book of Genesis, the third of the six sons of Jacob and Leah (Jacob's third son), and the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Levi (the Levites, including the Kohanim) and the great-grandfather of Aaron, Moses and ...

's "Kustom Monster" in a multinational clothing tour.Levi's Vintage Clothing Spring 2013 "Hot Rod" Exhibition
by Matt Bell 21 February 2013 in Homme Essential.

References

Living people 1952 births 20th-century American artists 21st-century American artists Artists from California {{US-artist-stub