"Two Cadillacs and a Dog" by artist Nicola Wood.
If you’re an auto buff and an arts connoisseur, E3 Spark Plugs suggests checking out the Automotive Fine Arts Society. Founded in 1983 the AFAS is comprised of an exclusive group of the world’s top automotive artists who work in various mediums including oil, watercolors, acrylics, wood, gouache, pen and ink, and clay and metal. These artists’ works are featured at select shows nationwide such as the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance and the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance.
A few of E3 Spark Plugs‘ favorites:
- Art Fitzpatrick, who began his career in 1937 designing four-door Darrin Packards, before going into automotive advertising. He’s best known for dramatically transforming Pontiac’s image with the Pontiac Wide Track advertising campaign art he created from 1959-1971, driving Pontiac sales from 7th place to 3rd place. Look for his name in the consultant credits on Disney/PIXAR’s animated film “Cars.”
- John Francis Marsh, a world-renowned industrial designer and artist who jump-started his career while still in high school, submitting model cars to the GM Fisher Body Craftsman Guild Scholarship contest. Today, he offers industrial design services via his Marsh Design Office and teaches industrial design at The Academy of Art University in San Francisco.
- Niles Nakoaka, a Hawaiian-born, self-taught artist whose watercolor paintings often are created using up to 30 layers depending on shades of transparency. He’s a contributing artist for Road & Track magazine and exhibits his art each year at Pebble Beach.
- Richard Pietruska, whose dynamic sculptures capture the dramatic, fluid motion of fast-driving, exotic automobiles of the past and present. He is a highly respected professor at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, and many of his former students are the leading automotive designers in the U.S., Europe and Asia.
- Natalia Wood, whose entered the automotive arts world in 1981 after spotting a 1959 Cadillac with a license plate that read “VADAR.” Born in Great Crosby England, she developed a preoccupation with the United States while “going to pictures” as a kid and falling hard for screen icons like James Dean, Elvis Presley, Marlon Brando, and Marilyn Monroe. Great American cars, particularly the “tail finned monsters of the Sixties” are prominent fixtures in many of her paintings, pencil and ink pieces.
- Gary Whinn, a former graphic designer who works predominantly in acrylic and pastel with a focus on nostalgic themes. He always includes people in his paintings to help to portray his personal view of automobiles as “an integral part of the backdrop in the everyday drama of life.”
Do you have a favorite automotive artist? E3 Spark Plugs wants to know. Leave a comment on our blog or post an image on the E3 Spark Plugs Facebook fan page.
