The Automobile as Art

Of all the twentieth century artifacts none is more typically American than the Automobile.
Because Morro Bay’s car show is this weekend, I thought it would be appropriate that my column focus on how the automobile has been used as a subject d’Arte.

Cruiser art images trigger memories and emotions. They bring us back to moments in our lives. In my case it’s the 1958 Ford Fairlane. Automotive paintings are examples of the beauty of the classic and the modern automobile.

As still life subjects the Automobile offers challenges in drawing and painting. The Artist is required to depict body styles in proper perspective, to illustrate the car’s sleek lines and bumper to bumper shapes, to create tone value changes to illustrate mass, altogether to properly achieve a three-dimensional feel and quality to the final work. Countless paintings and photographs have been made using “parts of” automobiles rather than the full car to make the composition appear more abstract. Nothing smiles wider than a 57 Buick. Imagine the goofy character of the 1961 Peugeot caught on canvas.

Some artists use thick paint while some thin, others apply paint with heavy handed bold brush strokes when some artists feverishly dry brush to blend all texture. Artists depict automobiles in different ways. A composition placing a Ford Woody in the middle of a city would not suit the car best compared to it’s natural surroundings on a beach with its 4 doors open and surf board set on its top. Even bumper stickers can become an interesting part of a painting.

The artwork can even be more engaging when the classic automobile is depicted in its aged and rugged form, rather than tricked out. Metro active, or Digital Art, can create superb stylized images of automobiles, Andy Warhol like.

From Ferrari, to Ford, cars themselves have even been used as a canvas. Art car artists are sometimes referred to as “Cartists”. Well known artists like Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Alexander Calder, Frank Stella, Ernst Fuchs, Robert Rauschenberg, David Hockney and more have had their work reflected on BMW Art Cars. (The BMW Art Car Collection is a series of BMW production models transformed from automobile to art by some of the world's foremost artists.)

Be it with stickers or bobbing figurines, cars have always become a tool to express individuality. During the late 1960s, singer Janis Joplin had a psychedelic-painted Porsche 356 and John Lennon, a paisley Rolls Royce. Counterculture of the late 60s and 70s decorated their cars with day-glow paint and often glued and bolted on various appliqué’s. Jan Elftman decorated her pickup truck with thousands of corks she collected over a 15-year period when she worked as a waitress in an Italian Restaurant. Decorating one’s car is another way to say, “Look at me”. Art car artists usually drive their own work and often dress to match their automobile.

While we stroll down the boulevard this weekend admiring more than 500 car show entries, I don’t think we will see anything like I have described. But, surely we will see exotic customized paint jobs. These are hugely expensive.

I am not a Cartist nor do I dress to match my car. The only thing my Ford needs is a good bath!