Automobiles and art

The Tel Aviv Museum of Art in Israel presents Sculpture on Wheels, an exhibition including 16 cars designed by famous European and American designers. Sculpture on Wheels represents a “historical view of the development of car design in the 20th century.”

Fifteen of the cars were selected from Israeli collectors, and one is the BMW 320i Art Car (above) painted by Roy Lichtenstein and comes from the BMW collection in Berlin. Lichtenstein comments on his work:

I wanted the lines I painted to be a depiction of the road showing the car where to go – the design also shows the countryside through which the car has traveled. One could call it an enumeration of everything a car experiences, only that this car reflects all of these things before actually having been on a road.

Another one of Lichtenstein’s pieces is part of the museum’s permanent collection. The Tel Aviv Museum Mural (1989) is a diptych and reflects some of the aspects of the Art Car. It also refers to other works in the museum’s collection, such as Marc Chagall and Picasso. An image of the left panel is shown below.

The High Museum of Art also has an automobile exhibition entitled The Allure of the Automobile. The exhibition presents 18 of the world’s rarest cars from the 1930s to the mid-1960s and also shows the evolution of the motorcar. The exhibition is on view through June 27.

In April 2009, the Collectors of the Friends of GMOA presented Art on Wheels, a celebration of automotive design at the State Botanical Garden of Georgia, which included a 1962 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud limousine and a 1964 Lincoln Continental convertible, among others. Click here to see professional photos from the event.