This superb $89.95 Raupp Calendar for 2012 can be yours if you send an email to vack@cox.net and are a VeloceToday Premium Subscriber.
By Pete Vack
This month we feature “Ferrari Myth” the Official Ferrari Calendar for 2012, which can be purchased via David Bull Publishing for $89.95. We are also giving one away in a special drawing, an offer limited to our Premium Subscribers. Just send me an email with your name and mailing address, I’ll put them in a hat and choose the winner. You must be a Premium Subscriber by the time of the drawing on January 10th, 2012 in order to qualify. Click here to susbscribe.
The winner will be announced on January 11th. But first a little about the Official Ferrari Calendar. With all those choices out there, how does a car manufacturer like Ferrari choose who will create their official, and pricey, calendars? What makes them different? And who is Günther Raupp? We set out to find the answers.
Raupp studied painting and art history at the State Academy of Art in Stuttgart but there he also discovered a penchant for photography. A prestigious art museum in Stuttgart, presented Raupp’s Venice exhibition when he was only 25. This launched an advertising business and before long he was in demand by automobile companies. Today he shoots campaigns, brochures and magazines for Audi, Buick, Fiat, Ford, Jaguar, Lancia, Maserati, Opel, Porsche, Toyota, Volkswagen, Volvo and others. He ranks as one of the most sought-after automobile photographers in Europe and the USA.
Official recognition signed with the famous purple ink.
Success allowed the young Raupp to follow his passion for Ferrari; soon he was able to buy a Dino 246 GTS and began to photograph and produce his own Ferrari calendar. “I started on my own and produced my first Ferrari Calendar for the 1985 year,” Raupp told VeloceToday. “I sent one to Enzo Ferrari and he replied to me and thanked me for the calendar. This was the start. It was a very close cooperation over all the years and when Ferrari installed their license department on a professional level, I was one of the very first Ferrari Official Licensees.”
Raupp’s work set the benchmark for the unparalleled history of a calendar series that is today most sought-after by Ferrari enthusiasts worldwide. His unique, unmistakable photographic style and the unequalled reproduction quality of his calendars impressed some of the most famous Ferrari collectors throughout the world.
When it comes to Raupp art, bigger is better.
Ferrari Historics organizer and historian David Seibert has known Raupp for over twenty years. “I bought one of his early calendars. This was far beyond the usual car calendar, and I was deeply impressed by his work.” Seibert realized that Raupp was clearly an artist and professional photographer. “When I was Executive Director of the Ferrari Club of America, we made Günther’s calendar the official FCA calendar,” recalled Seibert. “Then, certain people at Ferrari saw his calendar, and he was in. This was definitely the quality Ferrari sought, and so his calendars became the official Ferrari calendars, a rare honor.”
Raupp’s finished photographs had a deep color saturation rarely seen in automotive photography – the result of knowing how to use a large format camera and how to light a subject. “Furthermore Raupp had the patience to spend hours, or days, to get everything just right: the car, with accurate identification and history, location, lighting, and image,” said Seibert.
We asked Raupp how the calendar cars are chosen and by whom, him or Ferrari. “My partner is the Ferrari license department. I select everything, make contact with the car owners, set up and handle the shootings. I also do the graphic design and supervise the printing. Then I present every step to Ferrari, and over the years, they have approved 99.9% of everything. The cooperation with them is excellent. Today, I’m not the only photographer on the project and we are lucky to have a very good photographer on our staff. My agency is a contracted provider—producing and selling the Official Ferrari Calendars.
Seibert also had good words for Raupp’s latest book. “His calendars always were (and are) collectible, but for the images his 2008 book (Ferrari, 25 Years of Calendar Images) is a must-have. It was done in a large format, roughly 11 by 14 inches, necessary to really do justice to his images. In a small format, looking out over the carburetors and fenders of a 250 TR at a blurred horizon might be a nice photograph; printed at over 14 inches square in the book, it’s pure magic!”
We at VeloceToday noticed this phenomenon with his calendar art. The bigger we made the image, the more spectacular the art appeared. (Please note that there is also an F1 calendar, “Rosso Corsa” with photographs by Paul-Henri Cahier, Darren Heath, and Rainer W. Schlegelmilch which is priced at $39.95 and available via the same source.)
This is one calendar that will draw plenty of attention.
Raupp’s art has been extensively shown at major exhibitions. After the premiere at the Ferrari Museum’s “Galleria Ferrari” in Maranello, the “Haus der Wirtschaft” in Stuttgart became the next venue for his Ferrari photography; Valencia, Basel, Cape Town, Johannesburg and Tokyo were to follow. Now, collectors can also buy the photographs as valuable originals, created using an elaborate diaplex process in 120 x 120 cm format, and personally signed by Günther Raupp.
Günter Raupp is an artist; his photographs are art, and his calendars are collected for that reason. The more you see of his work the more you’ll realize why he has such a reputation.
Product Descriptions:
OFFICIAL FERRARI CALENDAR 2012 “FERRARI MYTH”
NUMBERED AND LIMITED EDITION: 5000 copies
FORMAT: c. 50 x 70 cm (20 x 28 inches) PRICE: $89.95 (plus $11.95 postage and packing)
The Official Ferrari Calendar, is certain to keep Ferrari connoisseur pulses racing all year round at home or in the office. This large-format, beautifully printed gem is considered a cult object in collector circles; only 5,000 individually numbered copies are available worldwide. The 28th edition of the classic calendar by photographer Günther Raupp presents all the new Gran Turismo cars as well as rare Ferrari classics from private collections.
OFFICIAL FERRARI CALENDAR 2012 “ROSSO CORSA”
FORMAT: c. 60 x 42 cm (24×17 inches) PRICE: $ 39.95 (plus $7.95 postage and packing)
With Rosso Corsa, the Official Scuderia Ferrari Calendar, Ferrari F1 fans can experience unfiltered proximity to the current team and its star drivers Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa. Three of the top photographers in motorsports – Paul-Henri Cahier, Darren Heath, and Rainer W. Schlegelmilch – have chosen their best shots exclusively for this brilliantly designed and printed calendar.
FERRARI: 25 YEARS OF CALENDAR IMAGES
Günther Raupp Hardcover, 11.5” x 13.75”, 224 pages 220 photographs Price $95.00 (plus $11.95 postage and packing)
ISBN: 978-3832792831
The substantial content of Ferrari: 25 Years of Calendar Images begins with an introduction and an exploration of the classic era of front-engined Ferraris, subdivided into Monoposto, sports-racing cars, and Gran Turismo models. Serving as a bit of an intermission before the start of the mid-engine epoch, The Gallery of Power celebrates the superb aesthetics and outstanding engineering of Ferrari engines. Next comes the mid-engine era followed by the GT era. The book closes with complete technical specifications for all the vehicles presented.
This book, with text in English, German, Italian, and French so impressed Ferrari designer, Sergio Pininfarina, that he raved, “A book that runs faster than time!” Marcel Massini, the well-known Swiss Ferrari historian, added that the book is “an absolute must for every Ferrari enthusiast!”