Renault 1908

CELEBRATING RENAULT CARS. 450 x 785 mm., (paper size), hand coloured pochoir print, in excellent condition. Clendenin stated that 'The Renault 1908 . is commonly called the Bluebird and is one of the most valuable and sought after'. A superb poster celebrating the entry of Ferenc Szisz (1873-44) in his Renault number 4 at the French Grand Prix at Dieppe. Szisz has gone down in the annals of Grand Prix racing as the winner of the first ever Grand Prix held at Le Mans in 1906, also in a Renault. That race was held on a closed public road circuit over two days, six circuits each day of a 64-mile route for a total distance of 769 miles. Szisz won in just over 12 hours with a top speed of 96 mph. The cars were allowed a driver and a mechanic. One of the key factors in Renault's victory was the detachable wheel rims seen here designed by Michelin, which allowed tire changes to occur without having to prise the tire and tube on and off the rim.The driving force behind the decision to race on a circuit ? as opposed to racing on ordinary roads from town to town ? was theParis to Madrid road raceof 1903. During this race several people, both drivers and pedestrians were killed. These included Marcel Renault (1872-1903) one of the founders of the Renault firm. The race was stopped by the French authorities at Bordeaux. Hundreds of thousands of spectators would line the roads with no safety in place. Further road-based events were banned.The artist here is Ernest Montaut (1878-1909) who is the most famous of the early illustrators of motor sports. He was born in Montauban, north of Toulouse, into an era in France where the motor car was beginning to catch the public imagination. Until Montaut, there had been no artist of motor racing. The cars had developed into large machines with big engines and were now being raced town to town on roads rutted by horse and cart. The thrill of these roaring down the road was captured best by Montaut, who began in 1897 to chronicle these races in art. He drew upon the poster art of the period produced by the likes of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) and Jules Cheret (1836-1932). 'His lighting can be Impressionist, his trees, swaying to the passage of a car, take on Symbolist curves. He is not afraid to colour like a Fauve' (Tubbs). In this image of a Renault a swallow is included lower right, a symbol of speed.He is credited with inventing two artistic methods to illustrate speed amongst others. The use of speed lines to indicate movement, the bending of the foreground of the car all help to project the feeling of speed and power. It was however Diego Velasquez who first blurred spinning wheels in a painting entitled 'The Spinners' from 1657! He drew directly on stone from which each print was made. Then followed the extensive hand coloured process using several stencils elaborately cut for each image, one for each colour. This is a process known as pochoir, a forerunner of the modern silk-screening process. As demand grew, he took on more staff eventually employing about a dozen to do the colouring alone. The motor car industry was booming, and his posters were used to decorate showrooms to encourage sales. He was not only known for motor cars, but his posters depicted other motorised machines, especially aeroplanes, another recent invention, along with dirigibles and motorboats. His earliest posters date from the late 1890s but the glory period is the early 1900s leading up to his tragic death in 1909 from appendicitis. Automobile Quarterly (Summer 1962) 'Montaut & Atelier' pp. 196-213; Clendinin, Dorothy (1976) 'Lively Legacy. The first automotive prints for the first automotive enthusiasts' in 'Road & Track' pp. 70-73; Helck, Peter (1977) 'Car Classics'; 'Collection de L'Atelier Montaut-Mabileau' (1992) Musee de La Colline de L'Automobile; Tubbs, Douglas B. (1978) 'Art and the Automobile'.…