Automotive Art

Car Art- a Brief History

The art of representing automotive subjects has been in a state of constant evolution ever since the birth of the automobile. The most beautiful evocations of automotive design and motion remain, in my view, the racing and travel posters of the 1920’s and 30’s. The very graphic,  clearly defined and stylized representations of speed and form in these “art deco” posters are the first benchmark for the car art genre. 

The second benchmark, in my opinion, was the photorealism achieved in the 1970’s using the airbrush……  (to be continued)! 

A Portrait of Your Car

In my privately commissioned car paintings on wood panel, the car is isolated against the natural texture of birch wood. Painting on wood panel, a craft traditionally associated with religious icon painting, pays homage to icons of motoring.

Current guide prices for commissioned original car art on wood panel (incl. framing and shipping):

25 x 50 cm     $ 570 /  £ 450

40 x 80 cm     $ 1400 /  £ 1100

50 x 100 cm   $ 1600 /  £ 1250

 

My Car Obsession

It was always a passion for design. Cars are complex sculptural objects. Throughout my childhood I was creating my own car designs because the forms and colours were irresistible to me. And then there were the engine sounds: These were living, breathing creatures! And then; their movement ! Cars possess a sense of life like no other human creation, and for me, have always been more than compulsively engaging.

At 18 I strongly considered studying car design, and visited the design department at Ford, which was then headed in Europe by Uwe Bahnsen. This visit was enabled by a family friend, the now legendary Norman. I remember Norman speaking in hushed tones about the even more legendary Robert Jankel, founder of Panther cars. At the time, the world of car design felt just too overwhelming. I began studying architecture. 

BEYOND DESIGN

You can see a car’s character, for instance, in the expressive volumes of its bodywork, its stance on the wheels, the wheels themselves and even in its ‘face.’ Each car has its own character, and I’m now rediscovering the challenge of capturing this in my car art. Perhaps my search for automotive beauty has brought me full circle to something beyond the physical. Aesthetics, after all, are a yearning for perfection, for a vision of the divine.

CAR ART AS ICON-PAINTING

My first foray back into the car world was my Fiat 130 Coupe portrait. This was an experiment in depicting the interior and exterior of the car in one canvas. The next car painting I made was a portrait of my uncle’s old MGB GT on a piece of plywood, and I gave it to him as a gift. (You can read about it here ). 

I now find myself making car art on wood panels in the same way that the traditional Greek Orthodox icon painters work: carefully, slowly, precisely, and with reverence for their subject. Here in the Holy Land, I constantly find myself returning to the transcendental, and so in a way, my car paintings on wood are icons themselves; spiritual offerings to the automotive gods !!!

SPECIAL CARS FROM MY LIFE

Seminal cars which were notable in my early automotive life were: 1966 Daimler 250 V8, 1968 MGB GT, 1973 Fiat 130 Coupe, 1975 Opel Manta Turbo (Broadspeed), 1966 Alfa Romeo Giulietta Berlina, and Fiats 600 and 850.