Automotive illustrations were of course very common, with the last great exponents being Art Fitzpatrick and Van Kaufman, who carried on doing Pontiac and Opel illustrations right up into the early ’70s. Back in the 1930s, perhaps the greatest automotive illustrator was Harry Anderson, whose work was often commissioned for calendars given out by oil companies and such, and not by the manufacturers.
Here’s a gallery of some of his standouts. This first one, of a 1932 Lincoln KB caught my eye, as it’s in a setting that’s familiar to me:
It is of course Bodie State Historic Park, one of the best preserved (mostly) abandoned mining towns in California.
1930 Ruxton in unidentified location
1933 Packard Sport Phaeton in Yosemite
1940 Buick Century at the White House
1907 Ford Model K at unidentified location
1926 Jordan Playboy somewhere west of Laramie, obviously
1934 Chrysler Airflow Sedan in St. Augustine, FL
1929 Franklin Sport Touring in unidentified location
1928 Falcon-Knight Rumble Seat Roadster at the Capitol
1933 Marmon V16 Coupe at Mt. Vernon, VA
1932 Chevrolet Sport Roadster at unidentified location
1931 Pierce-Arrow Custom Club Sedan in New York
1933 Pierce Silver Arrow at the Maryland State House in Annapolis
Duesenberg JN at Mt. Rushmore
Cord 812 Convertible Coupe in unidentified location
1935 Auburn Boat-tail Speedster in unidentified location. Savannah?
1931 Ford Model A DeLuxe Sedan in unidentified location
1947 Chrysler Town and Country Convertible at Mystic Seaport, CT
1936 Lincoln-Zephyr Sedan at a familiar spot on the Oregon Coast
Here’s the same vista
1938 Hudson Eight Convertible Coupe in front of what looks like a familiar mountain, almost certainly in CA, but I can’t quite put my finger on it right now
1941 Lincoln Continental Convertible at Old North Church and Paul Revere Statue in Boston, MA
Hi from Argentina , this is another marvellous find from Curbside Classic .
We believed , aren`t quite sure, but these magnificent drawings, illustrations that have certain Paints`value, were published every now and then in the +1950s issues of Mecà nica Popular magazine which obviously is the Spaniard version of Popular Mechanics .
Amazing illustrations…
The best cars and the best locations. Atypically for artists, Anderson seems to have had a strong sense of physical reality, almost an engineering mentality.
The cars are parked in positions that real drivers would choose, not positions that made the composition right. The snow and icicles on the mill behind the A, and the snow ruts under the A, are exactly right. The Cord has chains on the front wheels. The girl on the bike is screaming in horror at the sight of the Airflow. All exactly right.
Ha! Good one…
The choice location for theModel A Ford for the picture above was likely no accident as the building in the background is the Wayside Gristmill which is part of the grounds of the Wayside Inn in Sudbury Massachusetts which was owned by Henry Ford. This is a great collection of artwork.
Diese schônen kunstlerischen gemalde der Autoren Art Fitzpatrick und Van Kaufman wurden oft in almanaks vor vielen jahren gesehen oder : several of these fantastische automobilia paintworks were seen in old calendars some decades ago . If you still want to discover other brilliant auto`s illustrator who focused mainly on 1960/1970/1980 vehicles, the name of Giorgio Alisi may deserve to search about as well
What a wonderful collection! Thanks for presenting these paintings. Lithography with artwork was very important for magazines before color photo reproduction was perfected. Real treat, Paul! I have attached one that was for a fashion magazine. I do not know the marque of the automobile.
Here is one from, I think, a British journal circa 1936.
This one is circa 1923
Here is a Bugatti from the 1920’s.
Wow, such incredible detail in the back grounds! My favorite is probably the Cord with its tire chains.
Yes, as soon as I saw the Bodie, CA illustration, I knew instantly where that was, having been there once( and it being a two hour drive from my home north of there. The Wayside Grist Mill, Sudbury, MA I didn’t recognize, though I’d been to the Wayside Inn twice with my late mom and her sisters years ago. As you posted, these illustrations were super.
Made my day, great!!
Wow – what beautiful illustrations. In the people & scenery are just as compelling as the cars.
Incidentally, one scene that can be dated pretty accurately is the Duesenberg at Mt. Rushmore. President Roosevelt’s head hadn’t been completed yet – which sets the scene in 1937 or ’38… interesting timing since the last Duesenberg was produced in ’37.
You can find a Jordan Playboy for sale now and then
https://car-from-uk.com/sale.php?id=191417
I must have had that 1970 Esso calendar, or similar, because many of the illustrations are familiar, including the neat Falcon-Knight with the folding top over the rumble seat, the Franklin, the Ford Model K, and the wonderful robin’s-egg blue Packard.
I also had a framed version of the yellow 1932 Chevy, but with no background.
Thanks for the memories, and the pictures that I’ve never seen!
Yes, they’re all beautiful. Where’s the modern equivalent? Also in car ads today, you seldom see actual people doing enjoyable things in and around a car, looking gleefully happy!
This is the closest recent thing I could find (ad for Subaru–but it’s a photo, not a painting.)
Better resolution:
https://www.adweek.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/subaru-crosstrek-caring-otheres-2021.jpg
Wayside Inn
Simply lovely illustrations .
-Nate
Chains on the front wheels of the Cord 810, on the rear on the Pierce-Arrow Custom Club Sedan and Model A, but on all four of the Model K.
I wonder if the 1938 Hudson is showing Mt. Whitney from the east along CA 395 and just a short drive down the road from Bodie.
I thought Mt. Whitney too.
Mt Whitney? Looks very different.
Mt sHASTA FROM THE SOUTH-WEST?
My favorite touch is the tire chains, something I just can’t imagine seeing depicted nowadays. But at the same time, the dust-free appearance of the Lincoln at Bodie is not very realistic, though I bet that long wheelbase and high profile tires handled the washboard stretches pretty well.
Very nice, wonderful artwork. Thank you for sharing these!
The mountain in the background of the Hudson Eight looks a lot like Pikes Peak, in Colorado. I’m sure of it, in fact.
Beautiful pictures, amazing the way artists can depict sunlight, the white Boat tail Auburn a fantastic example.
I love the Woodlites ( headlights) on the yellow Ruxton.
My first thought. Bodie. Stumbled across it on a road trip in ’11. Thanks for the memory refresh.
And all the drivers and passengers look to be 5/8ths scale!
Wonderful stuff; thanks so much, Paul. John’s point about scale echoes my impression of the Marmon illustration: everything beyond the car is drawn at a different scale than is the car and the boy in the foreground—as if the point was to minimize the size of the automobile, surely not an intended consequence ?
That car, and the red Pierce-Arrow, would be high on my want list. And I’ve never seen a Cord in tire chains ! Lovely . . .
Actually the 1931 Pierce Arrow must be in Weehawken, New Jersey in order to feature both the Chrysler Building (42nd&Lexington) and Empire State Building (34th&5th) from that perspective. The artist seems to have got the proportions of the Empire State a little too big. It’s only 3 blocks further west than the Chrysler Building, closer to the river, and only 204 ft taller. (1046ft for the Chrysler Building and 1250ft for the Empire State.) With its top cut off I thought he had mistakenly included the World Trade tower ( which did not exist in 1931, of course)
Wow: that 1933 Pierce Silver Arrow is completely new to me, and it looks stunning, at least from that angle. A shame only five were made.
I remember reading in a auto hobby magazine like Cars and Parts, in the early ’70s, that one of them had been found abandoned in a stream bed and restored. I’d like to verify that and get more information but I’ve never found any other reference to that story.