PURE ART DECO........ WONDERFUL COLORS.... AUTOMOBILE OF THE FUTURE...EITHER THE SCARAB OR THE BUCKMINSTER FULLER DYNOMAXIA ?..THE SCIENCE FICTION ART WORK LOOK IS SUPERB. THE COLORS ARE BOLD AND BRIGHT WITH CLASS.....  I BET WE WILL BE SEEING CARS JUST LIKE THIS IN THE NOT TO DISTANT FUTURE -- RUN ON BATTERIES OR AIR...ORIGINALLY A FRONT COVER

PLEASE SEE PHOTO FOR DETAILS AND CONDITION OF THIS NEW POSTER

ARTIST:  Arthur Radebaugh (1906–1974) was an American futurist, illustrator, airbrush artist, and industrial designer. He produced a significant body of work for the automotive industry. He was noted for his artistic experimentation with fluorescent paint under black light, an interest that stemmed from his design work for the U.S. Army. From 1958 to 1963 he produced the syndicated Sunday comic strip Closer Than We Think! for the Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndicate.

Art and the automobile go hand in hand.  For as long as there has been sales literature, there has been a demand for eye-catching illustrations.  With the automotive industry constantly looking forward, there has also always been a need for artistic interpretations of the future.  One of the most prolific automotive artists to have dabbled in both was that of Arthur Radebaugh.

Radebaugh was born in Coldwater, Michigan in 1906.  He developed his interest in art and briefly attended the renowned Art Institute in Chicago.  It was there that Radebaugh first began experimenting with airbrush painting, a technique he helped popularize and used throughout his career.  As an artist, one of his first jobs was designing candy boxes at Crescent Engraving in Kalamazoo.

Before long a salesman noticed Radebaugh’s airbrush art, was impressed by what he saw, and offered to be his agent.  Radebaugh accepted.  One of his first clients in 1935 was MoToR Magazine, which purchased a painting for $450 and used it for the highly coveted cover of the Annual issue through 1957.  With the exception of years 1941-1946, he designed covers for every Annual issue through 1957.  Radebaugh’s artistic vision of the future fell in line with the forward-thinking nature of the automotive trade shows that the Annual issues were published to coincide with.

His paintings drew heavily upon the art deco movement of the 1920s through the 1940s, though his style would evolve with the passage of time.  His renderings of the future were inspired by the context of his present.  Looking at the 1935 MoToR Annual cover, the teardrop-shaped vehicle on the cover appeared to be loosely inspired by the streamlined forms of the 1933 Dymaxion and 1935 Stout Scarab.  By comparison, his crazy-looking cars on the 1956 MoToR Annual cover sported the iconic fins and chrome characteristic of the 1950s.

Radebaugh’s work with MoToR garnered him widespread attention, and his list of clients grew to include several big-name brands including the Saturday Evening Post, Fortune, Coca-Cola, and United Airlines.  The automotive industry also took note, with Chrysler contracting him to do artwork for their 1939 Dodge Luxury Liner sales literature and advertisements.  For the marque’s 25^th anniversary, Radebaugh blended the present with the future by painting the 1939 model year cars in front of lush science-fiction-inspired cityscapes.

It was around this time that the military also became interested in Radebaugh.  During WWII, the U.S. Army Ordinance Department hired him to lead their design and visualization division.  He and his team of artists were tasked with designing concepts for military technology, including the use of black lights in instrument panels to aid in stealth.  This particular project introduced Radebaugh to the world of fluorescent paint, with which he continued to experiment throughout the remainder of his career.

[ezcol_2third]After the war, Detroit resumed production of civilian vehicles.  In 1946, Detroit was celebrating the 150^th anniversary of incorporation and the American automotive industry’s Golden Jubilee (the 50^th anniversary of the first Detroit-built automobile, the 1896 King).  When the event committee wanted an emblem for the event, they commissioned Radebaugh to create it.  The resulting design consisted of symbols of the industry’s past (an antique car), present (a modern

In the postwar period, Radebaugh went on to do several ads for Bohn Aluminum and Brass Corporation featuring futuristic vehicles that were often over-the-top in appearance.  He also created sales literature artwork for Kaiser-Frazer in 1947, Nash in 1950 and Chrysler in 1951.  While these illustrations were distinctly his style, they lacked the science-fiction-inspired overtones found in the 1939 Dodge catalog.[/ezcol_1half_end]

As the 1950s wore on, the industry’s demand for Radebaugh’s work declined due to the increased use of photography.  Fortunately, he was able to find new life as an artist in 1958 with the introduction of his weekly newspaper comic strip, “Closer Than We Think!”  This provided Radebaugh a platform to share his artistic predictions for the future, covering everything from mail carriers with jet-packs to a solar-powered “Sunray Sedan.”  At the height of its popularity, “Closer Than We Think!” reached more than 19 million readers in the U.S. and Canada.  It ran until 1963 when ill health forced him into retirement.  Despite his long and successful career, he encountered financial problems in the last leg of his life.  Little more than a decade later in 1974, Radebaugh passed away in a veterans hospital.

Since then, Radebaugh’s work has been rediscovered and has garnered quite a following.  So long as the need for technological improvements remains there will always be an appreciation for those who dare to dream the future as he did.  At the AACA Library, Radebaugh’s memory lives on through a collection of MoToR magazines, sales literature, and 1946 Golden Jubilee programs. 

INFLUENCERS:

Richard Buckminster Fuller (/'f?l?r/; July 12, 1895 – July 1, 1983) was an American architect, systems theorist, writer, designer, inventor, philosopher, and futurist. He styled his name as R. Buckminster Fuller in his writings, publishing more than 30 books and coining or popularizing such terms as "Spaceship Earth", "Dymaxion" (e.g., Dymaxion house, Dymaxion car, Dymaxion map), "ephemeralization", "synergetics", and "tensegrity".

Fuller developed numerous inventions, mainly architectural designs, and popularized the widely known geodesic dome; carbon molecules known as fullerenes were later named by scientists for their structural and mathematical resemblance to geodesic spheres. He also served as the second World President of Mensa International from 1974 to 1983.

Fuller was awarded 28 United States patents and many honorary doctorates. In 1960, he was awarded the Frank P. Brown Medal from The Franklin Institute. He was elected an honorary member of Phi Beta Kappa in 1967, on the occasion of the 50-year reunion of his Harvard class of 1917 (from which he was expelled in his first year). He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1968. The same year, he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member. He became a full Academician in 1970, and he received the Gold Medal award from the American Institute of Architects the same year. In 1976, he received the St. Louis Literary Award from the Saint Louis University Library Associates. In 1977, he received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement. He also received numerous other awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, presented to him on February 23, 1983, by President Ronald Reagan.

Dymaxion Chronofile

For half of a century, Fuller developed many ideas, designs and inventions, particularly regarding practical, inexpensive shelter and transportation. He documented his life, philosophy and ideas scrupulously by a daily diary (later called the Dymaxion Chronofile), and by twenty-eight publications. Fuller financed some of his experiments with inherited funds, sometimes augmented by funds invested by his collaborators, one example being the Dymaxion car project.

The Stout Scarab is a streamlined 1930–1940s American car, designed by William Bushnell Stout and manufactured by Stout Engineering Laboratories and later by Stout Motor Car Company of Detroit, Michigan.

The Stout Scarab is credited by some as the world's first production minivan, and a 1946 experimental prototype of the Scarab became the world's first car with a fiberglass bodyshell and air suspension.

Contemporary production cars commonly had a separate chassis and body with a long hood. The engine compartment and engine were located longitudinally behind the front axle, and ahead of the passenger compartment. The front-mounted engine typically drove the rear axle through a connecting drive shaft running underneath the floor of the vehicle. This layout worked well, but limited the passenger space.

In contrast, the Scarab design eliminated the chassis and drive shaft to create a low, flat floor for the interior, using a unitized body structure and placing a Ford-built V8 engine in the rear of the vehicle. Stout envisioned his traveling machine as an office on wheels. To that end, the Scarab's body, styled by John Tjaarda, a well-known Dutch automobile engineer, closely emulated the design of an aluminium aircraft fuselage. The use of lighter materials resulted in a vehicle weighing under 3,000 lb (1,400 kg).

The short, streamlined nose and tapering upper body at the rear foreshadowed contemporary monospace (or one-box) MPV or minivan design, featuring a removable table and second row seats that turn 180 degrees to face the rear — a feature that Chrysler marketed over 50 years later as "Swivel ’n Go".

Although reminiscent of the Chrysler Airflow, streamliner, and the slightly later (1938) Volkswagen Beetle — other aerodynamically efficient shapes, the Stout Scarab was generally considered ugly at the time. Decades later, its futuristic design and curvaceous, finely detailed nose earn it respect as an Art Deco icon.

The Scarab's interior space was maximized by its ponton styling, which dispensed with running boards and expanded the cabin to the full width of the car. A long wheelbase and engine placement directly over the rear axle moved the driver forward, enabling a steering wheel almost directly above the front wheels. Passengers entered through a single, large, common door. A flexible seating system could be easily reconfigured (except for the driver's seat, which was fixed). The designer anticipated the seating in modern minivans, such as the Chrysler Voyager and Renault Espace; a small card table could be fitted with the passenger seats as needed. Interiors were appointed in leather, chrome, and wood. Design elements also worked in a stylized ancient Egyptian scarab motif, including the car's emblem. Visibility to the front and sides was similar to that of an observation car, although rearward vision was negligible and there were no rear-view mirrors.

The innovations did not end with the car's layout and body design. In an era where almost everything on the road had rigid axles with leaf springs, the Scarab featured independent suspension using coil springs on all four corners, providing a smoother, quieter ride. The rear-engine-induced weight bias coupled to the coil spring suspension and "Oil Shock Absorbers" endowed the Scarab with "Smooth Riding and Easy Steering on Rough Roads", if not very good handling and traction (even by the standards of the early 1930s, the reputation of the Scarab was one of very poor "blackjack-like" handling). The rear swing axle suspension with long coil spring struts was inspired by aircraft landing gear. The Scarab suspension inspired the later Chapman strut used by Lotus from their Lotus Twelve model of 1957.

The Ford flat-head V8 drove the rear wheels via a custom Stout-built three-speed manual transaxle. The engine was reversed from its normal position, mounted directly over the rear axle and with the flywheel and clutch facing forward. The transmission was mounted ahead of this, reversing and lowering the drive-line back to the axle. This unusual layout would later be repeated by the Lamborghini Countach.

A drivable prototype of the Scarab was completed in 1932, probably the first car to have an aluminum spaceframe unit-construction body. Some frame parts were steel. The second prototype was ready in 1935, with some styling and mechanical changes. The headlamps were set behind a fine, vertical-bar grille, and at the rear, narrow chrome bars curved from the back window down to the bumper, giving the car its Art Deco appearance. The body was changed to steel to reduce cost.

Stout stated that the car would be manufactured in limited quantities and sold by invitation. Up to a hundred a year were to be made in a small factory at the corner of Scott Street and Telegraph Road (US 24), Dearborn, Michigan. Although the Scarab garnered much press coverage, at $5,000 (equivalent to $97,638 in 2021), when a luxurious and ultra-modern Chrysler Imperial Airflow cost just $1,345, very few could pay the hefty premium for innovation. Nine Scarabs are believed to have been built. The vehicles were never produced in volume and were hand-made, with no two Scarabs identical.

Immediately following World War II, Stout built one more prototype Scarab, called the Stout Scarab Experimental. It was exhibited in 1946 and was more conventional in appearance, although still equipped with a rear engine. It was a 2-door, featured a wraparound windshield and the world's first fiberglass body. Like its metal counterparts, it too was a monocoque, built up out of only eight separate pieces and featured the world's first fully functioning air suspension, previously developed in 1933 by Firestone. It was never produced.

The Art Deco style, which originated in France just before World War I, had an important impact on architecture and design in the United States in the 1920s and 1930s. The most famous examples are the skyscrapers of New York City including the Empire State Building, Chrysler Building, and Rockefeller Center. It combined modern aesthetics, fine craftsmanship and expensive materials, and became the symbol of luxury and modernity. While rarely used in residences, it was frequently used for office buildings, government buildings, train stations, movie theaters, diners and department stores. It also was frequently used in furniture, and in the design of automobiles, ocean liners, and everyday objects such as toasters and radio sets. In the late 1930s, during the Great Depression, it featured prominently in the architecture of the immense public works projects sponsored by the Works Progress Administration and the Public Works Administration, such as the Golden Gate Bridge and Hoover Dam. The style competed throughout the period with the modernist architecture, and came to an abrupt end in 1939 with the beginning of World War II. The style was rediscovered in the 1960s, and many of the original buildings have been restored and are now historical landmarks.

The Art Deco style had been born in Paris, but no buildings were permitted in that city which were higher than Notre Dame Cathedral (with the sole exception of the Eiffel Tower). As a result, the United States soon took the lead in building tall buildings. The first skyscrapers had been built in Chicago in the 1880s in the Beaux-Arts or neoclassical style. In the 1920s, New York architects used the new Art Deco style to build the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building. The Empire State building was the tallest building in the world for forty years.

The decoration of the interior and exterior of the skyscrapers was classic Art Deco, with geometric shapes and zigzag patterns. The Chrysler Building, by William Van Alen (1928–30), updated the traditional gargoyles on Gothic cathedrals with sculptures on the building corners in the shape of Chrysler radiator ornaments.

Another major landmark of the style was the RCA Victor Building (now the General Electric Building), by John Walter Cross. It was covered from top to bottom with zig-zags and geometric patterns, and had a highly ornamental crown with geometric spires and lightning bolts of stone. The exterior featured bas-relief sculptures by Leo Friedlander and Lee Lawrie, and a mosaic by Barry Faulkner that required more than a million pieces of enamel and glass.

While the skyscraper Art Deco style was mostly used for corporate office buildings, it also became popular for government buildings, since all city offices could be contained in one building on a minimal amount of land. The city halls of Los Angeles, California and Buffalo, New York were built in the style, as well as the new capital building of the State of Louisiana.

There was no specific Art Deco style of painting in the United States, though paintings were often used as decoration, especially in government buildings and office buildings. In the 1932 the Public Works of Art Project was created to give work to artists unemployed because the Great Depression. In a year, it commissioned more than fifteen thousand works of art. It was succeeded in 1935 by the Federal Arts Project of the Works Progress Administration, or WPA. prominent American artists were commissioned by the Federal Art Project to paint murals in government buildings, hospitals, airports, schools and universities. Some the America's most famous artists, including Grant Wood, Reginald Marsh, Georgia O'Keeffe and Maxine Albro took part in the program. The celebrated Mexican painter Diego Rivera also took part in the program, painting a mural. The paintings were in a variety of styles, including regionalism, social realism, and American scenic painting.

A few murals were also commissioned for Art Deco skyscrapers, notably Rockefeller Center in New York. Two murals were commissioned for the lobby, one by John Steuart Curry and another by Diego Rivera. The owners of the building, the Rockefeller family, discovered that Rivera, a Communist, had slipped an image of Lenin into a crowd in the painting, and had it destroyed. The mural was replaced with another by the Spanish artist José Maria Sert.

The Art Deco style appeared early in the graphic arts, in the years just before World War I. It appeared in Paris in the posters and the costume designs of Léon Bakst for the Ballets Russes, and in the catalogs of the fashion designers Paul Poiret. The illustrations of Georges Barbier, and Georges Lepape and the images in the fashion magazine La Gazette du bon ton perfectly captured the elegance and sensuality of the style. In the 1920s, the look changed; the fashions stressed were more casual, sportive and daring, with the woman models usually smoking cigarettes. American fashion magazines such as Vogue, Vanity Fair and Harper's Bazaar quickly picked up the new style and popularized it in the United States. It also influenced the work of American book illustrators such as Rockwell Kent.

In the 1930s a new genre of posters appeared in the United States during the Great Depression. The Federal Art Project hired American artists to create posters to promote tourism and cultural events.