If someone asked you to guess which city hosted one of the largest and most complete collections of automotive paintings, sculpture, photography, cartoons, and memorabilia ever assembled, would you have guessed Pueblo, Colorado? Most likely not, but it's a fact nonetheless. This exhibit was proudly displayed at the Sangre de Cristo Arts Center located in the heart of beautiful downtown Pueblo. The city is currently undergoing a rebirth with updated and new buildings and a river walk, much of it revolving around the region's Native American culture. The automotive art exhibit was divided into three different galleries on three floors and was filled with some of the most recognized names in this increasingly popular field of artistic expression, in all its many and varied forms.
An exhibit titled, Converted: Art Inspired by Car Culture, occupied the White Gallery. In the midst of all the art, Nick Donovan and friends demonstrated the actual building of a hot rod-quite an impressive display indeed. Also, Jane Withers, owner of Hub Cap Annie's in Denver, had many of her favorite hubcaps on display. Many of them I had previously only seen in photos. Bob Larivee, Sr. and Harry Mathews also lent some of their large collection of art and artifacts, as well, which rounded out the show's overall feel, giving it what some pundits would call "texture."
Meanwhile, the Hoag Gallery was home to Low 'N' Slow: The Art of the Low Rider. Here fenders, hoods, and many other parts had exquisite airbrush mural work that held very deep meaning for the artist, car owners, and many viewers, as well. Photographer Jack Parsons, who uses his camera as a brush, enhanced the display with his landscapes of New Mexico as backdrop to his beautiful photographs of lowriders.
In the Regional Gallery was Resurrected: The VW Series. In this setting, Randy Zeleny of Randy's Stuff provided a remarkable array from his personal collection, including VW memorabilia consisting of parts, advertisements, and literature, even a beautiful VW pedal car. Jack Parsons exhibited here, as well with the first showing of his series of VW parts photography-some even rusted and bent, making almost an abstraction if you don't know your V-Dubs.
The King Gallery housed what makes a hot rodder's heart over-rev, the title of this part of the show being, Speedster Bodies: Celebrating the Hot Rod. To this venue, Neal East, Bob Larivee, Sr., and Harry Mathews provided many of their most prized pieces of automotive art. The sculptures of Stanley Wanlass, Bruce Wheeler, and others also graced the gallery, adding a three-dimensional aspect to original paintings by Bob Seabeck, Ken Eberts, Bruce Kaiser, Dave Kurze, Darrell Mayabb, and many others.
The Foyer Gallery housed, Full Service; A Closer Look at the Filling Station. The Arts Center third floor was devoted to the collections of gas pumps, hard-to-find glass oil bottles, etc., all the things that were once on the edge of the theater of the automobile but have now become the crown jewels that everyone tries to own some piece of.
Probably the heart of the show, though, was Car Toons: The Art of Automobile Cartooning. This part of the show was in the Foyer Gallery and displayed the work of cartoonists like Dave Bell, Dave Deal, Lance Sorchik, and C. Cruz. The godfathers of automotive cartooning, Tom "Stroker McGurk" Medley and Pete Millar, had some of their historic pieces of art gracing the walls, as well. Pete loaned original production boards used to prepare Drag Toons magazine for the printing process. A number of Pete's originals on display allowed us to see the great detail in his work. And if the late Ed "Big Daddy" Roth could have been present with the display of some of his finest work (and we all know he was in spirit), he would have been wearing his top hat, smiling at all who ventured to bask in his legendary, soft-spoken wisdom-and standing as close as possible to the food table.