Robert Perine (1923-2004) was the advertising genius behind Fender’s popular and highly successful “You Won’t Part With Yours Either” ad campaign, which ran throughout the 1960s and featured people carrying Fender guitars and amplifiers in a host of settings ranging from unlikely to outrageous—while scuba diving, surfing, skydiving, skiing and other adventurous situations.

As a partner in a Newport Beach, Calif., graphic-design company, Perine signed Fender as a major client and produced clever and sharply modern advertising, catalog and graphic work for the company from 1957 to 1969. His strikingly artful imagery and impeccable design instincts—honed during his training at the prestigious Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles—created a “Fender lifestyle,” casting the guitar company in a youthfully vibrant light that proved irresistible to the nation’s teenagers and their parents. The visual world he created thus contributed to the ’50s and ’60s Southern California youth culture that made Fender the industry giant that is, and it is fine testament to Perine’s vision that his classic Fender work looks as fresh today as it did then. VIEW COLLECTION