by Wallace Wyss –
One of the greatest designers I ever met was Giorgetto Giugiaro. I think when he was a teenager working at Bertone Carrozzeria back in the ’50s. He didn’t know or didn’t want to be presumptuous enough to ask for his drawings when a design was finalized. Later on, he probably began socking them away but who knows if he was able to take anything home from what he thought up at Ghia?
But the cognoscenti among the public still are familiar with some of his work
because press photos of his drawings were released willy-nilly by his employers. I always wanted to frame this early Grifo PR shot but, after being frustrated finding that, every time I see it, it has been cropped ever closer and closer until they begin to cut into the car itself. I just repainted a more expansive background. This is either his drawing of an Iso Grifo before the first one was built or a drawing for the upcoming production car.
Iso Grifo
He also did a front 3/4 drawing of the Grifo prototype, but alas he drew people next to it and the people are out of scale, making you wonder if maybe he quit life drawing class too early to draw cars? And it’s a black and white pencil sketch and I am of two minds about doing a color version. The actual prototype was dark grey but it’s hard to guess what color he was imagining it as.
Iso Grifo A3/L
I also found a Maserati Bora drawing that must be from the early days of ItalDesign when that was one of the designs that vaulted his self-founded design firm into prominence.
Maserati Bora
Maserati Ghibli
So, I’m going to make a 20″ x 30″ giclee print on canvas of this front view. I thought of sharpening the lines of the car, it was very loose in the original press release, but then thought “No, this was representative of Giugiaro’s style at the time”. His style got a lot sharper edged by the time of the Lotus Esprit.
Let us know what you think in the Comments.
THE AUTHOR/EMBELLISHER: Wallace Wyss has giclee prints of 100 of his original paintings and a couple of coach builder PR shots available on 20″ x 30″ canvas. For pricing and availability write malibucarart@gmail.com
Bizzarrini Manta
Iso Rivolta GT
Iso Grifo A3/C
Alfa Romeo Iguana
Bizzarrini Manta
Wallace,
The original drawing has a great background
Mike
Wallace,
Here is a drawing Giugiaro did of Renzo Rivolta, I’d say his talents go much farther than drawing cars.
With press release drawings, magazines and websites feel free to cut away willy-nilly to fit the space. I suppose that’s one more thing that divides “fine art” from “commercial art.” Renzo Rivolta wanted to get the news on his new car (s) out so he couldn’t exactly say to the press “If you run this, don’t crop.” As to why the Iso Corsa drawing was in black and white as was the prototype Grifo steel bodied car, that’s because most magazines then ran mostly black and white so no use spending time and money on color. Bertone had a sale of everything down to the pencils when they went bankrupt. I hope some museum got the Giugiaro drawings so one day we can see them displayed as the works of art they are.
Here’s a story on the auction with some great stuff for sale…
https://www.classicdriver.com/en/auction/aste-bolaffi-classic-cars-auction?id=562896&past_item=1