DAVID J. WAGNER, L.L.C.

John James Audubon's Birds of America Paine Art Center and Gardens David J. Wagner, Ph.D., Curator

American Wildlife Art Book Signing at Smithsonian following Washington, D.C. premiere of Endangered Species at The U.S. Department of Interior Museum David J. Wagner, Ph.D., Author/Curator

Home LUSTER: Realism and Hyperrealism in Contemporary Automobile and Motorcycle Painting Produced by David J. Wagner, L.L.C. Current & Upcoming Traveling Exhibitions

Past Traveling Exhibitions

Online Exhibition Galleries

Arts Administration & Museum Studies

Events

American Wildlife Art Book LUSTER: Realism and Hyperrealism in Contemporary Automobile and Motorcycle Painting Exhibition Prospectus Short (1.6 MB) LUSTER: Realism and Hyperrealism in Contemporary Automobile and Motorcycle Painting Exhibition Prospectus Long (3.7 MB) David J. Wagner Synopsis INTRODUCTION

The birth of the modern car occurred in Germany over 150 years ago. The first internal combustion, petroleum-fueled motorcycle came out of Germany 25 years later. In the United States, Henry Ford Company was established in 1901. A year later it morphed into Cadillac Motor Company which Ford left, along with the rights to his name. A new Ford Motor Company emerged in 1903 in Detroit with backing from a dozen investors, including the Dodge brothers. The same year, 1903, Harley-Davidson, was founded in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Its chief rival was the Indian Motorcycle Co. which emerged in 1901 out of a bicycle manufacturer in Springfield, Massachusetts. Much has changed since those early automotive years, but perhaps nothing more so than styling in the 1940’s and after, and America’s love affair with cars and motorcycles, which has expressed itself artistically and culturally in so many ways.

Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, cars and motorcycles have not only been ubiquitous on the nation’s streets and highways, but also in film, top forty hits, and in painting. After the emergence of Photo-realism in the 1960’s, motor vehicles assumed a special place of distinction as subject matter in the iconography of American photo-realists notably, (b. 1931) who painted cars inhabiting urban landscapes, and two West-Coast photorealists, (b. 1928) and Don Eddy (b. 1944). Harold James Cleworth (b. 1939), a Brit who immigrated to America in 1975 from London where he had been an illustrator with the distinction of designing the first two Rolling Stones album covers and the first cover of The Who, not only established himself as one of the first generation of photorealist, automotive painters in the U.S., but also expanded the market by publishing inexpensive posters through a network of distributors.

After the first wave of photorealists in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s, younger artists produced work that extended automotive painting in new and interesting ways, notably, in the stylistic realm of what has become known as, hyperrealism. In the 1980’s, Peter Maier (b. 1945) magnified the work of the first generation of photorealists, by painting cars and motorcycles to scale and applying actual automotive paint to canvases of side-body aluminum, sheet metal. Other innovators and virtuosos followed in the 1990’s and the New Millennium. Like the shiny automobiles and motorcycles they portray, paintings of these new-age artists can be characterized by the luster that permeates their work. Chrome ornamentation and trim; reflective side molding, hood and trunk enameled metal and high performance plastics such as ABS, and long before that sometimes wood; glass and rubber; and interior fabrication to meet the needs of purpose-built vehicles of all sorts: these are the surfaces which recent realists and hyperrealists have exploited to generate true, virtuosic masterpieces. But that’s not all; some of today’s hyperrealists contextualize their paintings, with the inclusion of figurative imagery, landscape, and even antithetical properties of aging or damage offering new and interesting visual as well as metaphorical possibilities.

The traveling museum exhibition, LUSTER: Realism and Hyperrealism in Contemporary Automobile and Motorcycle Painting, is comprised of over 45 paintings by 15 active realists and hyperrealists who specialize in automobiles and motorcycles as their primary subject of choice, in a range of media and scale. Their collective work embodies the very best of automotive painting being done today. It also encompasses a broad range of car and motorcycle styles and design from vintage vehicles of the first half of the Twentieth Century, to the classics of the 1950’s and ‘60’s, to road and track racing, off-road vehicles, exotics, and more. Featuring dazzling paintings that portray a spectrum of vehicles from the first half of the Twentieth Century to the present, LUSTER is a celebration of mechanical and artist design and style, the combination of which will have great allure with audiences throughout the United States.

David J. Wagner, Ph.D. Curator/Tour Director

LUSTER: Realism and Hyperrealism in Contemporary Automobile and Motorcycle Painting Press Release EXHIBITION ARTISTS

(in alphabetical order)

A.D. Cook (Las Vegas, NV) Randy Ford (Eastampton, NJ) Allan Gorman (West Orange, NJ) Marc G. Jones (Loveland, CO) Cheryl Kelley (Northern ) Richard Lewis (Los Angeles, CA) Lory Lockwood (New Orleans, LA) Sheryl Luxenburg (Ottawa, ON, Canada) Robert Petillo (Hardyston, NJ) Kris Preslan (Lake Oswego, OR) Joseph Santos (Buena Park, CA) Ken Scaglia (Weston, CT) John E. Schaeffer (La Grange, TX) Guenevere "MotoPainter" Schwien (Portland, OR) Brian Tull (Nashville, TN) Harold Zabady (Camp Hill, PA)

TOUR ITINERARY

Premiere: March 10 - June 21, 2018 Museum of Arts and Sciences Daytona Beach, FL Saturday, March 10, 11:00 a.m. Meet the Artists Gallery Walk 5:30 - 7:00 p.m. Members Reception in conjunction with Daytona Bike Week March 9 - 18, 2018

July 20 - September 9, 2018 Dane G. Hansen Memorial Museum Logan, KS

October 1 - December 23, 2018 Maria V. Howard Arts Center Rocky Mount, NC

March 1 – May 19, 2019 Saginaw Art Museum Saginaw, MI

June 7 - September 30, 2019 Sangre de Cristo Arts & Conference Center Pueblo, CO Autumn, 2019 Museum in Louisiana ~ Pending January 11 - March 8, 2020 AVAILABLE March 28 - May 17, 2020 AVAILABLE

June 1 - September 27, 2020 The Michele and Donald D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts Springfield, MA Indian Motorcycle Day Additional Venues Pending

THE ARTWORKS

Alphabetical by Artist's Last Name Outer Dimensions hxw in Inches Artworks and photos are copyrighted by their respective artists and may not be reproduced without permission

A.D. Cook A.D. Cook Dream 103 America 2016, Acrylic On Canvas, 24 x 36 2016, Acrylic On Canvas, 48 x 60 Private Collection Collection of Ed Wallace, Jr.

A.D. Cook Duet 1999, Acrylic On Canvas, 36 x 60 Collection of Jo Lavey A.D. Cook Indian Summer 2000, Acrylic On Canvas, 48 x 36 Collection of Mark McAlister

Randy Ford Coastal Contenders 2017, Oil on Panel, 48 x 72 Randy Ford Reference Photo; Artwork Photo To Come Glamour Shot 2017, Oil on Panel, 48 x 48 Reference Photo; Artwork Photo To Come Randy Ford Sedona Sidewinder 2017, Oil on Panel, 48 x 96 Reference Photo; Artwork Photo To Come

Allan Gorman A Nice Day For A Ride 2013, Oil On Canvas, 46 x 46

Allan Gorman Allan Gorman Red & Black Eagle Ruby & Sapphire 2014, Oil On Linen, 41 x 29 2014, Oil On Linen, 41 x 29

Marc G. Jones Austin Healey Allan Gorman 2017, Acrylic On Canvas, 28 x 40 Three Lights And A Horn 2016, Oil On Panel, 25 x 19

Marc G. Jones Marc G. Jones The Car Wash LeMans Porsche 917 2016, Acrylic On Gallery Wrapped Canvas, 30 x 40 2017, Acrylic On Canvas, 36 x 48 Cheryl Kelley Cheryl Kelley Blue Corvette Z-Line NASCAR 2016, Oil On Aluminum Panel, 15 x 24 2010, Oil on Aluminum Panel, 28 x 48

Cheryl Kelley Cheryl Kelley Cherry Corvette Teal Chevy 2017, Oil on Aluminum Panel, 15 x 24 2017, Oil on Aluminum Panel, 15 x 24 Reference Photo; Artwork Photo To Come Reference Photo; Artwork Photo To Come

Cheryl Kelley Cheryl Kelley Purple and Black Impala Beautiful Brown Chevy 2017, Oil on Aluminum Panel, 15 x 24 2017, Oil on Aluminum Panel, 15 x 24 Reference Photo; Artwork Photo To Come Reference Photo; Artwork Photo To Come

Richard Lewis Richard Lewis Alfa 8Cs Duesy Chrome 2011, Watercolor, 66 x 46 2004, Watercolor, 66 x 46 Richard Lewis Richard Lewis Hispano Suiza Chrome Snake In The Grass 2015, Watercolor, 46 x 66 2016, Watercolor, 46 x 66

Lory Lockwood Lory Lockwood Cool Pipes All The Pretty Horses 2017, Acrylic On Canvas, 30 x 44 2017, Acrylic On Canvas, 32 x 42

Lory Lockwood Partly Cloudy In Daytona Lory Lockwood 2017, Acrylic On Canvas, 30 x 44 Porsche on Porsche 2017, Acrylic On Canvas, 32 x 42

Sheryl Luxenburg Sheryl Luxenburg Apart At The Seams Double Decker 2012-2013, Acrylic On Linen, 23 x 28 2012-2013, Acrylic On Linen, 23 x 28 Sheryl Luxenburg Sheryl Luxenburg Down For The Count Shadow Of A Former Self 2012-2013, Acrylic On Linen, 23 x 28 2012-2013, Acrylic On Linen, 23 x 28

Robert Petillo Robert Petillo Heartland Frankie’s Root Beer Stand 2007, Acrylic On Canvas, 36 x 27½ 2007, Acrylic On Canvas, 38 x 29

Robert Petillo Robert Petillo Heroes To Protect And Serve 2008, Acrylic On Canvas, 30 x 20 2009, Acrylic On Canvas, 36 x 27

Kris Preslan Kris Preslan Cars I’ll Never Own, #10…the Woodie Cars I’ll Never Own, #12…Bentley 2017, Transparent Watercolor, 25 x 30 Transparent Watercolor Kris Preslan Cars I’ll Never Own, #15…Auburn Transparent Watercolor Kris Preslan Cars I’ll Never Own, #9…The MG 2015, Transparent Watercolor, 31 x 25

Kris Preslan The Old Indian 2014, Transparent Watercolor, 22 x 28 Joseph Santos Chevy Bel Air 2013, Watercolor, 21 x 22

Joseph Santos Ford Falcon 2012, Watercolor, 10½ x 28 Joseph Santos Lincoln 2013, Watercolor, 20½ x 22

Joseph Santos Ken Scaglia Lincoln 2 Arc of a Driver 2013, Watercolor, 21 x 21 2014, Acrylic On Canvas, 37 x 37

Ken Scaglia Ken Scaglia Arrangement in Grey and Black: Barrels Please Be Seated 2010, Acrylic On Canvas, 31 x 31 2017, Acrylic On Canvas, 37½ x 25½

Ken Scaglia John E. Schaeffer Saratoga 300 Rocket 88 2011, Acrylic On Canvas, 37 x 35 2017, Acrylic On Canvas, 25 x 25

John E. Schaeffer Mirror, Mirror John E. Schaeffer 2017, Acrylic On Canvas, 25½ x 31½ Fill'er Up 2017, Acrylic On Canvas, 25½ x 25½ Guenevere "MotoPainter" Schwien Desmo Details 2014, Oil on Wood Panel, 24 x 32 John E. Schaeffer Totally Wired 2017, Acrylic On Canvas, 31½ x 25½

Guenevere "MotoPainter" Schwien Guenevere "MotoPainter" Schwien Fifty Nine Bonneville Vintage Ducati 2015, Oil On Wood Panel, 31 x 22 2011, Oil On Wood Panel, 48 x 36

Brian Tull Guenevere "MotoPainter" Schwien 1,635 Miles Shadow 2013, Oil And Acrylic On Panel, 48 x 48 2017, Oil On Wood Panel, 35 x 24 Collection of Jim And Denice Nonneman

Brian Tull Before We Abandoned It Out West Brian Tull 2014, Oil On Panel, 60 x 84 Before California Collection of Nathan And Stephanie Chapman 2014, Oil And Acrylic On Panel, 65 x 53 Collection of CAA, Nashville, TN

Harold D. Zabady California Cobra Brian Tull 2015, Oil On Linen, 40 x 60 No Better Place 2014, Oil On Panel, 60 x 60 Collection of Jim And Kendall Oliver

Harold D. Zabady Harold D. Zabady Ferrari Tessarossa Iconic E-type Engine 2015, Oil On Linen, 30 x 38 2014, Oil On Linen, 40 x 60

Harold D. Zabady Timeless Beauty 2017, Oil On Linen, 40 x 60

Back to the top

Davidjwagnerllc.com is the official website of David J. Wagner. All documents, images and general contents of this website are © David J. Wagner, LLC. Member A.A.M., American Alliance of Museums I.C.O.M., International Council of Museums