A new artwork show coming to Los Angeles will pair traditional Mercedes-Benz vehicles with Andy Warhol’s depictions of Mercedes-Benz autos. Warhol is primarily acknowledged for his paintings of Campbell’s soup cans and silkscreened visuals of celebrities like Marylin Monroe. Right prior to his death in 1987, Mercedes commissioned Warhol to make a collection of operates all around their automobiles. It was never done, but visitors to the Petersen Museum will even now be equipped to catch a glimpse of what could have been.
In 1986 Mercedes was obtaining completely ready to rejoice the 100th anniversary of Karl Benz’s Benz Patent Motorwagen. The a few-wheeled motor carriage is greatly deemed the to start with internal combustion vehicle, however some historical accounts elevate concern with that declare. In any situation, the automaker hired Warhol, a pioneer of the “pop artwork” movement, to support celebrate the historical past of the brand name.
Warhol was meant to produce 80 shots of substantial Mercedes models, starting up with the Patent Motorwagen and the Daimler Motor Mentor, also from 1886. Only 8 types were completed, depicted in 36 silkscreen operates and 13 drawings.
Amongst them are the Mercedes W125, a race automobile that won four Grands Prix in the 1937 time. Famously, it created about 600 horsepower from its supercharged inline-8, and a variation of which attained a leading pace of 268.9 mph with a streamlined entire body.
The 1954 Mercedes W196 was a different Grand Prix racer, a descendant of the W125. Variations of it gained two Grand Prix seasons in a row, in 1954 and 1955 with famed driver Juan Manuel Fangio guiding the wheel (and Stirling Moss as runner up). It is really closely associated to the 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupe that turned the most expensive car ever bought previously this yr.
Previous but not least, the show also characteristics a Mercedes C-111, a gull-winged experimental sports motor vehicle powered by, in some versions, a mid-mounted rotary motor. Sixteen ended up constructed to examination Mercedes technologies, and the a person in the show is powered by a V8. Unfortunately, it hardly ever built it to output.
However incomplete, the functions are pure Warhol. It truly is frequent for artists and carmakers to collaborate right now, but in advance of Warhol it was unseemly for a true artist to revel in the commercial. He turned the artwork world on its ear with his Campbell’s soup cans, and in that vein the Mercedes fee doesn’t look that significantly-fetched. Following all, when questioned what he loved most, according the authors of the book Andy Warhol, the artist replied, “Cash.”
The Petersen Automotive Museum’s show, Andy Warhol: Cars and trucks, opens July 23.
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