Academy of Art and their Automobile Museum

Story by Brandes Elitch, Photos by Petya Elitch..

Riddle me this. One of the greatest car collections in the world is private, not open to the public, and yet you can see it whenever you want, any time of day. There are over eighty fully restored cars, primarily big prewar Classics: Auburn, Cord, Duesenberg, Packard, Cadillac, Pierce Arrow, Rolls, Delage, Hispano, Lincoln, and more. Moreover, thousands of people see these cars every day. Can you answer this riddle?

Try this: the collection is owned by the San Francisco Academy of Art (www.academyart.edu) – the largest art and design school in the US, with over 13,000 students. It was founded in 1929 by Richard Stephens, originally to teach advertising art. The school’s business model is to have established professionals as teachers, to teach future professionals. In 1951, the second generation took over, another Richard Stephens, but with a different middle initial, and the collection is the work of that Mr. Stephens, who is now 84 years old, and still acquiring cars. It is safe to say that he has exquisite taste in car collecting, as you might expect from someone who has devoted his life to the arts. The cars are located in the showroom of an old car dealership, originally J.E. French Dodge and Plymouth, on the corner of Van Ness and Washington, the old “Auto Row” in downtown San Francisco. Anyone walking or driving down Van Ness can see at least half of the cars in the front or side window. And even a casual observer would be stopped in his tracks, if they had even the slightest interest in cars. The first time I drove by on Van Ness, hurrying to a meeting, I almost locked my brakes when I absent-mindedly glanced to my right and saw 20 huge grilles in the window.

The Academy is fully accredited by the prestigious Western Association of Schools and Colleges, and grants both undergraduate and graduate degrees, including one from the School of Industrial Design, which teaches, among other things, automotive design. Imagine: you are a student, working on a clay model of your car-term project, and you are looking for inspiration. You can go downstairs, and study a 1938 Delage D8 pillarless coupe by Letourner et Marchand, restored to better-than-new condition, or perhaps the Pierce Arrow factory coupe modeled on the fabulous Silver Arrow cars. If that wouldn’t break a creative logjam, I don’t know what would.

The collection reflects the personal taste of Mr. Stephens, who grew up in the Depression and dreamed about these cars when they were new. He buys what appeals to his artist’s eye. Since he grew up in San Francisco, he probably didn’t see a lot of foreign cars in his neighborhood during this period. Hence, there are only a few foreign cars and no Italian ones! We focused on the aforementioned Delage and an Hispano dual cowl phaeton, bodied by D’Iteren Freres.