Sold! For $1700!
Wallace Wyss reports on finding a market for his road art…and how you can, too!
In the beginning…way back in the 60s… I started out in college as an art major. But I barely got started when some hotshots from an ad agency showed up and said “We need summer interns.” I raised my hand for artist but wouldn’t you know they said “That’s filled,” so I raised my hand again as copywriter and was chosen.
I followed up after graduation as a copywriter on the Oldsmobile account where I worked with the late VeloceToday contributor Eric Davison, but then segued to a more exciting job as a copywriter on the Chevrolet account. There I became the go-to guy for high performance. That led to a job at Car Life, then Motor Trend and 50 years of free lancing interspersed by a few books including three on Shelby, one of which became a best seller (50,000 copies).
But then the digital revolution came along. Everybody with a phone became a photographer. Everybody with access to the net could research and write. No editors, magazines, or for that fact, money was involved anymore. Just do a blog.
An earlier work depicted the Scaglietti Corvette.
In 2009, I picked up a paintbrush again. I made a portrait of Shelby and took it to Beverly Hills to a car show along with my latest Shelby book. I sold the book and then took out a picture of the painting and showed it to the same customer and he said “Go get it, you sold that too.” On the long walk back from my car I resolved to start painting again.
A NEW CAREER, A MERE 50 YEARS LATER
Hope springs eternal. This last August I was up in Monterey with my spouse, selling my prints from a tent at Concorso Italiano for $20 each, hoping to sell enough to be able to cover our motel bill for Car Week.
At the same time, over on the other side of town, Mecum Monterey was rolling cars across the stage in their circus sized tent. I had entered two of my prints of my Ferrari paintings on first arrival at Monterey but didn’t know they sold until I drove five hours home and checked the net. Not only did they sell but one went for $1700--that’s a whole lotta $20 prints!
By the way, I am not selling my originals, those are sometimes in rough shape after many revisions. Instead I sell giclees (pronounced GEE-CLAY) –a fancy French word for “print on canvas. ” So no frame is necessary, with the canvas stretched around and stapled to a wood support frame.
https://canvasgicleeprinting.com/what-is-a-giclee/
Once a painting is done–or about as far as I want to go on paper, I take a picture of it, go to a photo place that specializes in wedding photos and have them make a print on canvas mounted over a wood support frame. Rarely do I have one arrive back on canvas that’s just like I want it, so I add little touches with oil, called “embellishing,” but sometimes I end up with a new painting that’s about 10% different than was on paper when I took it to be printed on canvas. That particular store has an owner with an artistic bent and he will often anticipate changes, like making the part that wraps around the corners dark, changes he makes in a second. I prefer to send it mounted on the hidden wooden support frame but once, finding out it cost $300 to send to Hong Kong, I had to pull the canvas off the wood support frame and mail it rolled up. I don’t like to do that as the paint dried hard and could crack a bit.
“Every time I finish a new oil, I go to the beach and have my picture taken in a white suit holding the art.”
ROAD ART AUCTIONS
Now “Road Art” is a grab-bag name. It includes loads of pedal cars (Hey, ma, where’s mine, the one that I abandoned in the ’50s?) neon signs and metal signs for brands that are but a memory. But it’s a growing area of interest at Mecum. The cool thing is, once a piece of road art is accepted, they put it up on the net for advance bidding so bidders can register and start bidding even before the in-person auction happens.
I called Julie Petkoff of Mecum to explain precisely how that works: She said:
“You can set proxy bids on the items you are interested in if you would like. A proxy bid is the maximum amount you plan to spend up to on a certain item if you know you are not available to bid live once the auction starts. If the bidding goes over your proxy bid then you would receive an email letting you know you have been outbid and would have to login and bid live in order to continue to bid.
The auctioneer would determine what the bidding increments would be for that item. For example they would say “I have $500 on the internet” but then if someone in the crowd, on the phone or another internet bidder wants to bid they can. But again, if you have a proxy bid set and the bidding goes over you would have to bid live.
If you are only planning to internet bid then it would be a $100 fee for internet bidding only. Otherwise if you want to register for bidding in person or by telephone as well, then it would be $200. If you are planning to bid on just the road art starter pieces, those will start around 9:30am . All road art will go in the morning before the car auctions start at 10am.”
If you are a collector of a certain type of Road Art, this system allows you to bid from the comfort of your armchair. Shipping info is all on the website–wherever your home is, that shipping is going to add to the price of your winning bid.
So now I’m back on the auction circuit with a print of my Ferrari P3/4 painting entered in Mecum’s Chicago auction this month. Again it will be another nail biter for me, entering at “No Reserve” (so theoretically some lucky fella could bid one dollar and walk off with it under his arm).
On the block, this Thursday!
The Ferrari P3/4 is listed now on their website. I don’t like it being offered on Thursday, October 13th, the first day of in person bidding, but maybe that could work out well as no other competition, and people haven’t spent all their money yet. Not many sports cars in this auction. On their auction website, there I am, amidst the children’s pedal cars and kid’s bicycles (and even a horse collar!) – but at least I’m on stage. Click here to see the selections:
https://www.mecum.com/roadart/newest-lots/
I recommend auctions to get your feet wet in this new arena. At Monterey, there was only one other sports car painting competing against me, that sold for $11,000. But that was by LeRoy Neiman, an artist first made famous by Playboy for his sports art. So I didn’t feel discouraged. He was famous. I’m not. It puzzles me, though, where are the rest of the automotive artists? All I can think of is they have found events that they display at, like Tony Singer’s Automobilia in Seaside, CA or Pebble Beach’s Retro Auto.
The GT40 is from shot I took at Laguna Seca. It’s the same car that won Le Mans twice in a row, owned by Robb Walton.
So there it is–a whole lotta water has gone under the bridge since that first day I picked up a paintbrush, and here I am back where I started–an artist. But, hey, it’s encouraging. A lot better than the $1.50 royalty check I just received from a publisher who shall remain nameless (to save us both embarrassment)..
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THE AUTHOR/ARTIST: Wyss can be reached at Malibucarart@gmail.com
In the early-’60s, it was an adventure every day to be a flack for a go-fast company. I did stints at Holman & Moody and Shelby, both in the glory years, then went to Europe and got paid to hang around with Ken Tyrrell, Chunkie Chapman and Eric Broadley before the lethality of F1 and the cratering economy drove me back to the states. High performance was mostly in the rear view then, and I took to the real estate business, eventually making what (at least to me) was quite a bit of money at it. But nobody ever bought me a drink to hear my tales of house and apartment selling! I really envy you for the artistic talent: I’ve got several albums of photos that would make great paintings…but even my stick men look wrong. Keep the faith!!
Your pictures would be of interest to me if they have the key people at racing teams visible–Shelby talking to Gurney, etc.–as now I’m beginning to miss the people and their key roles more than the cars, but but I unfortunately shot most of my pictures after shooing people out of the way first. Maybe you can write Pete Vack and ask him to run a batch of old pictures from various events with people in them near the race cars they managed, engineered, designed or drove.
FOLLOW UP: The Ferrari P3/4 portrait above went for $944 in Chicago. I’m doing an Iso Grifo A3/C portrait for Mecum Las Vegas now…..
Interesting article, Wallace. I am not a creator of road art, but I have a large quantity of prints and giclees collected over the last forty years. It is time to skinny down. I would like to see more online automobilia auctions such as Mecum is doing. Occupying a booth all day or selling one piece at a time through classified ads takes too much time and does not appeal to me.
Hi Ed–I remember you from my Ferrari Club days. There’s a few caveats–I submitted my three paintings for NO RESERVE so theoretically if it was a bad weather day when they went up for auction and no crowd, some lucky bidder could walk away with one for a dollar. Then, too, I had to pay $100 per painting to enter them and 18% commission when they sold. But I couldn’t have left them with a Reserve because if they failed to meet Reserve, you have the expense of shipping them back (shipment for one painting was $75). And for your Ferrari memorabilia, you have to pick the right auction–I would recommend Monterey. It’s too bad Gooding, RM Sothebys don’t have memorabilia at their car auctions because they have more connoisseurs of Italian cars but they are too busy moving the metal. By the way , just because you submit it doesn’t mean it’s accepted for consignment. My Iso Grifo A3/C painting will have to wait for some future auction.
Overall I think Mecum is doing a good thing–making automotive art available to a wider audience who likes cars but never had n opportunity to buy it. I am still amazed the winning buyer of my p3/4 painting for $1770 was but a 10 year old lass! (She sure get more allowance than I did t that age…)