By Scott Riggins
Artwork by: Wallace Wyss
Wallace Wyss, a fine artist down in San Bernardino, sent us word that , after almost 20 years of painting oil portraits of exotic cars, many of which he photographed on the Peninsula during Car Week, he finally got around to doing his first poster.
Yes, he went commercial at age 82! Fine artists , he opines, "sometimes have a negative view of commercial artists, those who agree right at the outset to make room on the artwork for the mention of a product."
Right there, Wyss says, "I used to think they sold out."
Wyss admits that, back when he left art school to become a copywriter back in the '70s, he himself had that prejudice, but after meeting some fine artists who worked with ad writers to create ads that in Wyss' view, were art, he began to be an aficionado of commercial car artists.
"Some of the racing posters of the '30s through the 60s, are highly sought after and I admire those artists for sometimes making their own type style,so no one else could have a poster with the same type font as they do."
Wyss didn't go that far, but he did retain a lettering expert in New York who followed his suggestion to find some circus type lettering for his first ever poster. "I happen to go back to before TV, when one draw for kids was the circus. I still remember the circus posters," he says.
So he chose circus poster-inspired lettering to promote his poster that features a Ferrari 365GTS Daytona on a Pacific beach.
"I might enter it in the Mecum Monterey auction, says Wyss, who back in 2022 sold a canvas print there for over $1000. "They once were thought of as a company that sells only muscle cars but I noticed recently they now feature more a dozen Ferraris at their Monterey gig."
"I am offering it right now to businesses on the Peninsula to buy poster rights to put their own name on it and have it ready for the army of aficionados arriving in Monterey in August, " Wyss says. "Just one sale to a business will allow me to run off a few fine art versions on better paper," he says. He can be reached by texting 213 344 6496.
