LUSTER: Realism and Hyperrealism in Contemporary Automobile and Motorcycle Paintings
15 artists • 60 original artworks

LUSTER: Realism and Hyperrealism in Contemporary Automobile and Motorcycle Painting features a selection of dazzling paintings of vehicles from the birth of the automobile and motorcycle to the present. As such, LUSTER is a celebration of automotive design and style and contemporary artist virtuosity.
The birth of the modern car occurred in Germany over 150 years ago. The first internal combustion petroleum-fueled motorcycle came out of Germany 25 years later. In the United States, Henry Ford Company was established in 1901. A year later it morphed into Cadillac Motor Company which Ford left, along with the rights to his name. A new Ford Motor Company emerged in 1903 in Detroit with backing from a dozen investors, including the Dodge brothers. The same year, 1903, Harley-Davidson was founded in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Its chief rival was the Indian Motorcycle Co. which had already emerged two years earlier, in 1901, from a bicycle manufacturer in Springfield, Massachusetts. Much has changed since those early automotive years, but perhaps nothing more so than styling in the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s, and America’s love affair with cars and motorcycles, which expressed itself artistically and culturally in so many ways.
Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, cars and motorcycles have not only been ubiquitous on the nation’s streets and highways, but also in film, top forty hits, and in painting. With the emergence of photo-realism in the 1960s, motor vehicles assumed a special place of distinction as subject matter in the iconography of American art.
David J. Wagner, Ph.D.
Curator/Tour Director
A.D. Cook Featured Artworks
Original paintings on canvas
Now at the MUSEUM OF THE ROCKIES in Bozeman, MT
EXHIBITING ARTISTS (in alphabetical order):
- A.D. Cook (Las Vegas, NV)
- Randy Ford (Eastampton, NJ)
- Allan Gorman (West Orange, NJ)
- Marc G. Jones (Loveland, CO)
- Cheryl Kelley (Northern California)
- Richard Lewis (Los Angeles, CA)
- Lory Lockwood (New Orleans, LA)
- Robert Petillo (Hardyston, NJ)
- Kris Preslan (Lake Oswego, OR)
- Joseph Santos (Buena Park, CA)
- Ken Scaglia (Weston, CT)
- John E. Schaeffer (La Grange, TX)
- Guenevere “Moto Painter” Schwien (Portland, OR)
- Harold D. Zabady (Camp Hill, PA)
Tour Itinerary
Museum of Arts and Sciences
Daytona Beach, FL
Premiere: March 10 through June 21, 2018
in conjunction with Daytona Bike Week March 9 - 18, 2018
Dane G. Hansen Memorial Museum
Logan, KS
July 20 through September 9, 2018
Maria V. Howard Arts Center
Rocky Mount, NC
October 1 through December 23, 2018
The Evelyn Burrow Museum
Hanceville, AL
January 12 through February 10, 2019
Saginaw Art Museum
Saginaw, MI
March 1 through May 19, 2019
Sangre de Cristo Arts & Conference Center
Pueblo, CO
June 7 through September 30, 2019
Haggin Museum
Stockton, CA
November 7, 2019 through February 2, 2020
The Morris Museum of Art
Augusta, GA
March 6 through May 10, 2020
The Michele and Donald D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts
Springfield, MA
June 1 through August 23, 2020
Artist’s post > Indian Summer in Springfield
The Ella Carothers Dunnegan Gallery of Art
Bolivar, MO
October 18, 2020 through April 25, 2021
Art Museum of South Texas
Corpus Christi, TX
June 1 through September 12, 2021
Lyman Allyn Art Museum
New London, CT
October 23, 2021 through January 2, 2022
The Museum of the Rockies
Bozeman, MT
January 22 through May 01, 2022
The AUBURN CORD DUESENBERG AUTOMOBILE Museum
Auburn, IN
June 1 through January 15, 2023
The Citadelle Art Museum
Canadian, TX
February 10 through May 21, 2023
The Dennos Museum Center
at Northwestern Michigan College
Traverse Bay, MI
June 11 through September 3, 2023
Additional Venues Pending
Visit David J Wagner LLC online for updates
Exhibition photos provided by David J. Wagner and participating museums. © Copyright by their respective owners. Images used by permission.
More great pics at davidjwagnerllc.com/Luster_Exhibition.html