Plates, portfolios & book breakers

In the 1960's there was a 'trend' for producing 'fine art quality' motoring folios featuring detail drawings of notable racing and general motor vehicles. Individual plates are not uncommon and can even be found lurking in car boots & charity shops, as a result these prints are often dismissed as unworthy of being fine collectable motoring art, but, but...hang on a minute - when looked at with an open mind this is entirely wrong! They are excellent and should not be dismissed so easily!

Sadly one of the reasons they are not valued is that they have almost always been hacked about by the dreaded 'book-breaker' and, taken as individual prints, they can appear underwhelming - but this is not the whole story. To explain this a little further, simple mathematics says that if you take a book that you have paid £60 for, and it contains 10 prints and you can sell the prints (in dodgy frames) for £20 each - your £60 book suddenly becomes worth £200 - minus the cost of clipframes, boom! there's your profit - this is the attitude of the book-breaker! This is the reason why these seemingly average prints have become dismissed.  

So let me start out by declaring...I love these prints! They evoke a time and style which the trend of 'instant images' has almost 'brushed out' of the motoring archive. The quality of them is fantastic, and having slated book-breakers, let's be honest here - this is why they were produced as folios - so that they could be framed and mounted on the wall of the garage - this is why the quality is so good - the paper and the reproduction quality is second-to-none and when you handle one of these prints you can instantly tell the quality and appreciate the printers art.

Normally they can be found with a brief 'history of the subject' detailing the specification of the car and notable succeses, but as I'm fond of saying "nobody buys pornography for the text". The interest is in the quality of the image and the painstaking detail that the artist has included.

So, having 'bigged up' the prints- let's take a quick look at the common complete folios that you may come across.

At the top of this blog is the image of the excellent 'Motorpictures London' folio. Prints from this publication are the most likely that you will encounter. The artwork is by Hans Muth who is perhaps better known as a motorcyle designer for BMW - as with all of these '60's prints the quality and detail is exceptional, If found in a frame, there's a very good chance that this will have to be changed, don't be put off by a bit of foxing, this is normal with this age of print- and unless it affects the picture very detrimentally don't let it stop you acquiring the print! We consider it always better to 'go big on the frame' to show these off to their best effect.

The above is an example of how we frame and present the Hans Muth images at The Mabileau.

The Motorpictures folio should contain 14 prints when it is complete - we have 1 complete at the gallery and a large quantity of the loose prints. A complete  folio is worth grabbing if you find one, but they are rare - luckily auctioneers don't seem to know what they are or the desirability of them so they are sometimes available with low estimates! 

The other ones to look out for are the Hugh Evelyn / George Oliver folio books - There at least 3 of these (maybe more) but we have 3 at the gallery.

These were produced as 'bound books' and are very good quality, although most that you will find will be showing age related wear! The main problem is that because they are bound editions they have often been victims of the 'Stanley knife' so always check that all plates are included. 

As with the Motorpictures folio, they are excellent quality and well worth having in any collection. 

We always prefer to keep these books/ collections intact and generally when we offer a single 'image'for sale it is because we have found a framed single plate and have reframed and restored it. 

Interestingly we have found it is almost always the Bugatti images that have been taken out of portfolios - not sure what this signifies! but it is always the first plate I look for when checking that a collection is intact!

One of the other 60's /70's publishers of fine art 'technical' prints of motoring is a company called Prescott-Pickup - known mainly for steam engine and locomotive prints, PP also produced some very fine Alfa Romeo racing car images. Unlike the 2 previously mentioned these prints have an element of 'shading' and are slightly less technical than the others, they do however frame nicely and make great wall-art. I believe that these prints were available as single sheets rather than portfolios, but they are also worth considering as detailed art. 

Prescott-Pickup Alfa Romeo image.

Unlike the majority of motoring art the ones in this blog are purely about 'the car' there is an absence of background and location - they can appear a little devoid of character - but correctly framed they do make great display items.