All roads lead to Wolfsonian-FIU’s exhibit exploring auto design in America

Brochure, Lincoln Zephyr, 1937, Lincoln Motor Company. The Wolfsonian-FIU.

If you haven’t already seen it, there’s still time to check out The Wolfsonian-FIU‘s current exhibit, “Styled for the Road: The Art of Automobile Design, 1908-1948,” an engaging exploration of automobile design in America from the 1900s through the 1940s. The exhibition, on view through March 14, highlights the important role played by designers and visual artists in communicating the complex ideas that guided the development of automobiles, roadways, service stations and advertising materials.

More than 80 skillfully and elegantly rendered design drawings – most presented publicly for the first time – demonstrate how the design of automobiles changed dramatically through styling, as well as how the automobile exerted a profound impact on the built environment and on American culture. Created by industrial designers, architects, draftsmen and illustrators, each original design drawing – whether a conceptual idea for styling a car’s fender, an illustration of a new car for a marketing campaign or a rendering of a service station – conveys information about the particular project, the context in which it was made, and the designer’s own personal aesthetic.

In providing evidence of the visual strategies and techniques used to translate abstract ideas into concrete form, “Styled for the Road” explores the widely overlooked contribution of designers and visual arts in creating the aura of American automobile culture.

“These drawings might convince a manufacturer to re-style a fender or radiator grille, persuade a consumer to buy a new car, or provide valuable information for an urban planner,” says Marianne Lamonaca, curator of the exhibition and The Wolfsonian’s associate director for curatorial affairs and education. “Today, they also invite our scrutiny because they reveal the beauty and intensity of hand-rendered drawings, at a time when digital imagery dominates our visual culture.”

Organized by The Wolfsonian-FIU, the exhibition presents original artworks drawn primarily from the Jean S. and Frederic A. Sharf Collection of American Automobile Art along with advertising brochures, automobile industry periodicals, and other printed ephemera from The Wolfsonian’s collection. The exhibition is part of The Wolfsonian’s “Celebrating America” series of exhibitions that explore various aspects of the American experience – social, political and cultural – from the early 1900s to the present, through a range of viewpoints. American Express is sponsoring “Celebrating America.”