Cool "Car Art" Illustrations
- Thread starter amazinblue82
- Start date
67newport
Old Man with a Hat
67newport
Old Man with a Hat
67newport
Old Man with a Hat
commando1
Old Man with a Hat
Loved the artistic license of the illustraters of the day in the proportions. One of my favorites.
HAS to be 30' long.
HAS to be 30' long.
67newport
Old Man with a Hat
67newport
Old Man with a Hat
commando1
Old Man with a Hat
67newport
Old Man with a Hat
I am of the age (my mid 30 something children, with a father who has the "sickness, are not) when vehicle art of the types in this thread left an impression on me.
But, to my surprise, my kids actually love some of this old art. Even they can see why people liked this stuff .. cars (and art) built 30 years before they were born.
Anyway, the work that stands out and the Van and Fitz pieces. "AF and VK" as they signed them -- Art Fitz and Van Kaufman. Mainly did the Pontiac ads .. 1959-1971, but also Buicks, Mercs, Fords, and assorted other GM stuff. Can't find any they did for Chrysler though
If you wanna go more deeply, somebody did a book on Van & Fitz, a couple Detroit and LA boys. They are both gone, but like many artists their work is eternal
source: Hagerty 2021 - Automotive ad legends Fitzpatrick and Kaufman
"It’s been said you should never meet your heroes because they’ll never live up to your expectations. Rob Keil [author of the book] didn’t find that to be true. Instead, he learned that sometimes your heroes turn out to be bigger, better, and more fascinating than you ever imagined. Book-worthy, even.
“Fitz and Van are legends, the best of the best,” says Keil, author of the newly released, 200-page retrospective Art Fitzpatrick & Van Kaufman: Masters of the Art of Automobile Advertising, published by Advection Media. “You don’t have to love cars to love their work. A lot of people know their ads without knowing who they were.”
Vehicle illustrations like Fitz & Van are 40 years gone, like our beloved C's never again to be done by a manufacturer. Reason I like them, though, it the same reason I like old, well-done stuff (cars, trucks, planes, buildings, buses, etc). This art itself, not just the cars, is in that category.
With so many automakers reaching into their past and reviving once-popular models, might the Fitz and Van magic be recreated in advertising? Keil doesn’t think so.
“Not because it isn’t technically possible, but because we’ve moved on to a different place,” he says. “People are used to seeing things in a photograph or created on a computer.
Could the best artists in the world do something like this?
"Maybe, but it will never happen. Sadly, that era has passed. Fitz and Van were yesterday’s news by the time they were finished. People don’t believe illustrations like they do photographs, and Fitz and Van manufactured reality with paint and colored pencils.”
But, to my surprise, my kids actually love some of this old art. Even they can see why people liked this stuff .. cars (and art) built 30 years before they were born.
Anyway, the work that stands out and the Van and Fitz pieces. "AF and VK" as they signed them -- Art Fitz and Van Kaufman. Mainly did the Pontiac ads .. 1959-1971, but also Buicks, Mercs, Fords, and assorted other GM stuff. Can't find any they did for Chrysler though
If you wanna go more deeply, somebody did a book on Van & Fitz, a couple Detroit and LA boys. They are both gone, but like many artists their work is eternal
source: Hagerty 2021 - Automotive ad legends Fitzpatrick and Kaufman
"It’s been said you should never meet your heroes because they’ll never live up to your expectations. Rob Keil [author of the book] didn’t find that to be true. Instead, he learned that sometimes your heroes turn out to be bigger, better, and more fascinating than you ever imagined. Book-worthy, even.
“Fitz and Van are legends, the best of the best,” says Keil, author of the newly released, 200-page retrospective Art Fitzpatrick & Van Kaufman: Masters of the Art of Automobile Advertising, published by Advection Media. “You don’t have to love cars to love their work. A lot of people know their ads without knowing who they were.”
Vehicle illustrations like Fitz & Van are 40 years gone, like our beloved C's never again to be done by a manufacturer. Reason I like them, though, it the same reason I like old, well-done stuff (cars, trucks, planes, buildings, buses, etc). This art itself, not just the cars, is in that category.
With so many automakers reaching into their past and reviving once-popular models, might the Fitz and Van magic be recreated in advertising? Keil doesn’t think so.
“Not because it isn’t technically possible, but because we’ve moved on to a different place,” he says. “People are used to seeing things in a photograph or created on a computer.
Could the best artists in the world do something like this?
"Maybe, but it will never happen. Sadly, that era has passed. Fitz and Van were yesterday’s news by the time they were finished. People don’t believe illustrations like they do photographs, and Fitz and Van manufactured reality with paint and colored pencils.”
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Remember ... a drawing. Only one they did .. all the raindrops on the hood, and the depiction of their runoff, had to be individually drawn. Wow...
As disclosed in Keil's book, a real place that Van and Fitz sometimes used ... this one was Eden Palace au Lac, Montreux Switzerland (see the wrought iron railing and other architectural cues)
