 The American automobile has long been an emblem of personality and an icon of fantasy. The advent of Modernism, air travel, and images of a streamlined future were powerful influences on the car industry. This exhibition, presented by AutoNation in association with Beaux Arts and Nova Southeastern University, focuses on the height of American automobile design as it flourished in the decades following World War II.
The Great Age of American Automobiles, a tribute to the visions in chrome and steel that captured the hearts of a post-World War II nation. "Appealing to art lovers as well as car fanciers, the exhibition will carry our visitors back to the moment when cars became not just vehicles of transportation but vehicles of the imagination," said Museum President and Executive Director Irvin Lippman.
The Great Age of American Automobiles showcases five rarely seen roadsters from the 1940s, '50s, and '60s, including the twin-cockpit 1941 Chrysler Newport concept car, the only non-production car to ever pace the Indianapolis 500. It's joined by the 1959 Cadillac Cyclone with towering fins, the razor-sharp 1963 Chrysler Turbine, the classic, long and lean 1958 Chrysler 300D, and the muscular 1965 Plymouth Barracuda.
 The dazzling exhibit also places the beauty and ingenuity of American automotive design in the driver's seat: 130 elegant drawings of concept cars and autos that actually were produced are on display alongside period advertising artwork. Drawn from the collection of Jean S. and Frederic A. Sharf and organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the pieces provide a rare glimpse into the behind-the-scenes creative process at some of Detroit's premiere car companies.
Before computers entered the mix, artists reported to the automotive production facilities each day and shifted their imaginations into overdrive. The best of the preliminary drawings of car concepts, interiors, and details would get transformed into presentation art – renderings that glistened with the unlimited potential of the American dream. Some of these went on to become prototypes, which were exhibited to test public reaction.
 During the 1939 New York World's Fair, the "Futurama" exhibit captured the crowd's imagination like no other, and it was this sci-fi tinged sensibility that inspired the auto industry's artists in the post-war design heyday. No longer content to produce boxes on wheels, they conjured up futuristic rolling sculptures. Rockets and airplanes provided the cues for everything from tailfins (patterned after the Lockheed P-38 Lightning airplane) to the bomb-like shapes used as bumpers. So many of the young designers looked toward the skies for inspiration that one model, the Aerocar, actually had wings!
"It seemed to me that there was … an unexplored niche in the art world where real works of art existed but were totally unappreciated," said Frederic Sharf, who began accumulating automotive presentation drawings and advertising artwork in 2001. "Ironically, the auto companies for whom the art was created assigned no value to these drawings, and generally destroyed them almost as soon as they were created. Yet somehow a limited quantity of original material survived, usually within the families of the artists."
The exhibition is accompanied by an 80 page, fully illustrated catalog entitled: American Automobile Art, 1945-1970. The book, written by Frederic A. Sharf with Danielle Berger, includes more than 50 color illustrations of breathtaking examples of graphic art, many never before published.Is available in the Museum Store.
Drawings from the Jean S. and Frederic A. Sharf Collection
Organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Complemented with classic automobiles from the General Motors Corporation, Performance Division, and the Walter P. Chrysler Museum
Presented by AutoNation
With additional support from Beaux Arts and Nova Southeastern University |
