ART ON THE WALL, AN ARGUMENT FOR....by an artist

HOBBIES:Why Automotive art?

I am continually amazed at how little automotive art plays in the lives of most hard core enthusiasts--they might have a couple of hundred thousand dollar cars in their garage but no artwork, save an ad torn out of an old magazine.
You would think that the owner of a certain car---the one they worked for years to afford, or searched for , would want to commemorate that car in its golden moment (like the time they raced at Riverside or exhibited it at Concorso Italiano). but though they own the car (or cars) for years , the idea of commissioning a painting never occurs to them They've heard the words "commission" but didn't know ordinary people, not just Kings or Dukes, could commission a painting.
As a fine artist, I've done quite a few commissions. I don't mind setting the car, once I have a picture to guide me with the lighting on the car, is portrayed in a background meaningful to the owner. Like the owner of a Jag XK 120 who wanted his red XK120 parked outside the Wimbledon Stadium. I asked "Why?" and he replied "Because my daughter played tennis there."
I got it, the painting was for his daughter, making it a double souvenir of sorts, so I even painted a tennis racket into the foreground.
I would think if your car has a racing background or if not one's own car but yours is one of a model that did race, you might want that model's most famous moment commemorated.

THE FIGHT FOR WALL SPACE
Also I have been in some pretty big houses. I sold one painting of a guy's Ferrari to a man whose house was so big I think a football player could kick off at the front door and just about reach the back door with the ball. Yet the painting was tiny--12' x 18." I was hoping he would see how small it looked on that vast wall but haven't heard back. But at least he's gone that first step--commissioned original art.
The challenge in setting aside wall space for car art is, dare I say it, The Wife. I hope more guys meeting with their wife to make a decoration plan can fight the good fight for a few square feet of wall space for car art (don't count on 50%--the most territory I've ever seen a man win is 5%.The ideal is to have a den just for car art on the walls, car models on the shelves, maybe a sculpture or two. (man cave?)
Now, influenced by Edward Hopper, I'm trying to put more people in. Not the owner necessarily, but I now feel a race car needs to be put into a scene at a race, wither racing, or in the pits with folk doing something -changing tires or fueling it up.
Some some artists bend over backwards accommodating the customer. A line in another artist's website ad grates me. It reads something like: "if you don't like the background color, get back to us, we'll do a new painting and change that color to match your wall." To me that reduces the importance of the painting to something as trivial as the color of the pillows on the sofa.

DETAIL PAINTINGS
There's one area of automotive painting I have only tip-toed into--that's a tight close up of a detail of a car. Truth be told, some cars have, say, a design that's good but when reduced down to its most memorable styling feature, what' the feature? Like the grille cavity of the Dual Ghia, or the razor edge rear roof on the James Young version of the Phantom V RR. So I am trying to pick out that one feature and do a detailed portrait, but every time I do it, I have the nagging thought "But what if they would rather have the whole car?"


YOUR HOBBY? WHAT"S THAT DOING HERE AT THE OFFICE, JONES?
An irony of the automotive collecting world for Doctors, lawyers (and yes, Indian chiefs) and other professionals, is that a hobbyist might be known far and wide outside the office for his automotive interests but rarely is there any evidence of that passion in his business office. I did meet a Ford exec who had a large toy train in his office, I don't know what scale but BIG and I thought how brave he was to let his hobby be revealed at the office. (Maybe he lost the fight for space at his house with his spouse?)

RACE POSTERS
i don't collect them and since lettering is beyond me haven't done many posters to commemorate a race. But I can see why folks want them--they want that actual poster, or a good copy, because that event is one of their favorites, even if it happened before they were born.

CUTAWAYS I think of these as an offshoot, more of interest to engineers than regular folk. But some cutaways signify huge changes in the direction of a car company so are worth saving--say when Ferrari went from front engine to mid-engine.

FACTORY ART
Almost all car factories commissioned art at one time or another. True, mostly for ads but sometimes they made it as a poster, I was even handed a poster, signed and all , at a Ferrari booth at a major auto show by the car's designer, Ken Okuyama of Pininfarina. So I say factory art has a double significance--it shows the car the way the automaker wants you to see it, and sets the mood (and sparks desire) so to speak.
In sum, I live in hope that more car enthusiasts, those who already have the decals, the badges, the books, the patches, might at last think about car art. To me, art adds the crowning touch to a collection.
So the next event you go to, look at the automotive art-- it's a part and parcel of the whole hobby that you might have ignored for too long...
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Caption: Rosso prototype. A Pininfarina Ferrari designer handed me this. So it's art and it's promotion both..
Caption Lest you think Ferrari doesn't use art to promote anymore, they released this drawing in 2021
Caption A mechanic might care only about the engine but there's only a few artists portraying engines
Caption At Weathertech Laguna Seca, I ran into some SP2s and later captured my first sighting on canvas. I
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Hope you guys who shoot a picture pull back a tad and show the whole wall,including cabinets and some furniture so we can appreciate the ambiance created. I forgot to mention one of my doctors who has three of my car paintings of his den wall but not grouped together--interspersed with paintings of plants. And no model cars, no racing references. So I say the bttle has still to be won, he's only got 1/6th of that den wall in a house that must be 4,000 sq. ft!

About Dallison, one of the best. Did a magnificent book for Mercedes--I think 100 paintings. i sat next to him at an ad agency while he drew some ads for Chevy...heard all about how he watched the Blitz in London during the war

 

That's more like what I hoped to see-the art work competing the other ingredients of refuge for car enthusiasts I envision a couple of reclining leather chairs so you and a car buddy and each recline and watch an old racing movie during a cold winter evening when it's too icy or slushy to take the treasured car out. And let's not leave car-themed clothing out (I've seen helmets of famous drivers...)
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