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The Making of BMW Art Cars (1975-1990) - Part 1

BMW is a player not just in races but in arts too. 16 BMW Art Cars have been created so far with American artist Jeff Koons being the most recent artist in the gang. Artists for the BMW Art Car Project are chosen by a panel of international judges. Jeff Koons was announced as the eighteenth in the series of these BMW Art Cars on the 2nd of Feb, 2010. Following Alexander Calder's work of art, many renowned artists throughout the world have created the BMW Art Cars. Here's an opportunity to drive back into the history of these cars.

ALEXANDER CALDER - 1975 | BMW 3.0 CSL

Herve Poulain invited his friend Alexander Calder to create canvas on an automobile and in 1975 the first BMW Art Car was ready. This car was a BMW 3.0 CSL which Poulain himself used in the 1975 Le Mans endurance race. The masterpiece was one of the last works of Calder before his death. Without any handcuffs, Calder freely put his own artistic lines that made the sports car so colorful. He died on November 11 the following year after supervising the installation of his largest retrospective exhibition.

FRANK STELLA - 1976 | BMW 3.0 CSL

Like a black and white graph sheet, this BMW 3.0 CSL has been adorned with square grids. The whole pattern is so even and accurate. The technical aura of the sports coupe made Stella, a painter and an ardent fan of motor racing, forget his usual random paintings. The car participated at the Le Mans.

ROY LICHTENSTEIN - 1977 | BMW 320i

Painted lines signify roads, pointing the way for the BMW 320i. The car has travelled beautiful landscapes. The feel the occupants experience is reflected on the car's exteriors. Ben-Day dots were considered the hallmark of American artist Roy Lichtenstein, who enlarged and exaggerated them in his paintings, sculptures and contemporary comic book and magazine images. He has used them on this car too which won the second place in its class at the Le Mans.

ANDY WARHOL - 1979 | BMW M1

While other artists painted scaled-down cars and then got the art transferred by assistants onto the real one, Pop Art legend Andy Warhol painted the 470 bhp BMW M1 himself from start to finish. When the car sped real fast, he wanted the lines and colours to go hazy. Speed has been pictorially portrayed. This magnificent work of art had its only race outing at the 1979 Le Mans where it came sixth.

ERNEST FUCHS - 1980 | BMW 635 CSi

Fuchs calls this BMW 635 CSi 'Firefox on Harehunt'. Just imagine a hare racing across a superhighway at night. It is hurdling over a burning car, and the fear, desire to survive, the earnest prayers it makes and the bold dream that the hare has of conquering the fire, all come alive in the colours, shapes and lines of the painting. Fuchs sees the handsome hare leaping through flames of love, driving away fears.

ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG - 1986 | BMW 635 CSi

Famous works of art like the 1535 Man of the World painting by Bronzino and a work by the French artist Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres form parts of Robert Rauschenberg's car design. Using photography techniques, he worked these pieces and his own photographs of trees and marsh grass, projecting them onto the bodywork of the car. For the first time even hub caps, beautifully depicting photos of antique plates, were not spared.

KEN DONE - 1989 | BMW M3

Ken Done was already attracted to this BMW M3 high-performance car and also wanted the painting to echo the liveliness of his home continent, Australia. Parrots and parrot fish, symbolizing beauty and speed, came to his mind. Exotic colours were immediately poured forth on the car reflecting immense energy and mysterious exoticism. He did full justice to the painting work assigned to him by the Australian BMW Motorsport department.

MJ NELSON - 1989 | BMW M3

Have you seen aerial views of landscapes? MJ Nelson's paintings on this M3 feature those aerial view symbols of water, caves, animals, men and their religious sagas handed down from one generation to the next in the form of cave paintings for thousands of years. The dreaming stories in typical Papunya art works are enlivened in the painting on this Art Car.

MATAZO KAYAMA - 1990 | BMW 535i

BMW technology and modern Japan's stunning associations come out in this car painting. Kayama's airbrush did the job with snow, moon and flowers. To highlight the contrast and to emphasize the graceful quality of the car, he sprayed fine blue shadows on the silver bodywork and then used classical Japanese techniques like cutting out tiny pieces of silver, gold and aluminum foil individually and transferring them to the bodywork.