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 Historian Turns Artist

Wallace Wyss, co-author of the book Ford GT40 and the New Ford GT (2007 Winer-Wyss Publishing)  says he didn't become a fine artist until June 2007 when he painted a portrait of Carroll Shelby to promote his new bio of Shelby called SHELBY The Man The Cars The Legend. When a Miami publisher bought the book and was shown the painting, he insisted on buying the painting as well as the book, Wyss decided to then make prints of his watercolors so more people could have them. His artwork varies in style from super-realist to a looser style of brushwork.

He began painting with his 10,000 negative picture file as a source for information. In some cases it is difficult to tell his paintings from mass-produced photographic imagery. He says he is not the inventor of photo-realism, merely, at times, a super-realist.

"It depends on whether the car is moving or static," he says. "If it is moving, I can't possibly get in the detail I can when it's sitting still. My ancient Nikon  F3 begins to lose focus when a car is blasting by at 150 mph, so I go with the flow of the picture."

Using photographs as a source material has its good points and bad. "At times where I shot the original photo, the background was distracting or boring, so I developed a style for my paintings where I go to semi-abstract backgrounds or maybe use a solid color as a sort of "veil' over the background so you can see what context the car was photographed in, but the background has been rendered not important."

At other times, the background is interesting and adds flavor, like ingredients in some exotic recipe, and Wyss plays with the background, as in his "Gulf GT40" where the car, SN1075, is sitting on the grid at the Monterey Historics. Wyss gives a hint at what cars are in the background and has dimly seen figures awaiting the starter whistle to blow to signal the cars going out on the track but no background car or human figure is important enough to take away from the GT40 itself.

Wyss is also a new student of the fine art done by the AFAS, the Automotive Fine Arts Society. "Their members have great resumes in art, schools like the Royal College of Art or Art Center, whereas I like to say I graduated from the 'School of hard knocks" and am self taught, a 'primitive' like Granma Moses,"  says Wyss.

Wyss draws a line between his definations of super-realism and  photo-realism. "I say photo-realism is where the painter rigorously adheres to what you would see if you took a picture."

In super-realism, he opines:  "I am more into painting with the goal of  capturing the spirit of the car-- the mood it strikes. Of course I retain some fidelity to my original photographic source in making the car super-realistic, but if the car is at any time threatened from its preeminance by being distracted by elements from by the background, I will render the background to secondary status by creating an effect similar to the shallow depth of field "out of focus" look you get when you shoot a car with a telephoto lens like a 200mm
or larger.
 
The best way you could describe it, says Wyss "is sometimes I paint a car the way you really see cars. At times, with your peripherial vision, you don't really see a car in sharp focus, but you catch the movement of the car as  a dominant impression. That is what I am trying to capture.  You might say I am painting what I know about the car not just what I see."
 
Wyss explains : "The distinction between the abstract and the representational in my work is purely arbitrary, a decision made each and every time I sit down at my easel and open my paintbox.

In the static shots, some would quibble with an artist using an angle on a car inspired by photographs taken by wide angle or telephoto lenses. "Those present viewpoints that are not what we can see by our eyes but still, because they represent views common in car photography, as an audience we are already educated to appreciate them." 

Having a photograph in hand when you take out your paintbox isn't insurance you will have the makings of a painting, says Wyss. "It's one thing," he explains, "to be at a concours or car race and to see a car, quite another to photograph it and still quite another thing to  paint it. Each is a distinctly separate experience." 
 
The oddest thing, says Wyss, is that some of his photographs, shot at random at a concours or racecourse, were not in his estimation, great photographs. ?Yet once I began to transfer the image to paper as a painting, I sometimes find that there's enough character of the car there that I can create  a resonance in the work that can transform what was a mediocre picture into a painting with real soul."

"It doesn't always happen and I throw a lot of paintings away that don't have the necessary "feel" he says.

He also plans to make more watercolors that are emphasizing just parts of the car. Why? Because sometimes a small part of the car has enough character to represent the whole, such as the side exhaust and side vent of a 427 Cobra . "Just the exhausts of a big block Cobra conveys the character of the car," says Wyss. 

Information on how to order a Wyss print  can be gained by corresponding with the artist at: photojournalistpro@hotmail.com