Spy Art Review: Start your engines at AAM by Steve Parks

Now and for the next few months, Easton’s Academy Art Museum’s main galleries are transformed into automobile showrooms – except these vehicles are historically artistic expressions of engineering on wheels that you could never afford even if any of the few such cars left in existence were for sale.

But while Concours d’Elegance – vintage auto shows of great prestige – are the highlight of the “Bugatti: Reaching for Perfection” exhibition, curated by Ken Gross and running through April 16, cars are but one medium of fine art produced between the two 20th-century world wars by Italian family patriarch Carlo Bugatti and his sons Rembrandt and Ettore Bugatti and grandson Jean.

Although he never traveled beyond Europe, Carlo drew on Asian, African and Islamic cultural influences in creating fin-de-siecle furniture designs of which two examples – one from the Virginia Museum of Fine Art in Richmond, the other from Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts – are displayed in the hallway separating the auto “showrooms.” One is an armchair, possibly of Turkish inspiration, that like most of his works – including a hallway bench and an armchair, neither of which you’re allowed to sit on – combine exotic materials: ebonized wood inlaid with copper, brass, ivory and mother of pearl accented with leathery and painted flourishes.

His eldest son, Rembrandt, followed with an explicit art discipline rather than highly refined craftsmanship. In his short life ending in suicide at age 31, he devoted his talents to bronze sculptures of animal figures, none of which, presumably, posed for him. “Three Cow Grazing,” “Asian Elephant Begging” (perhaps for water?) and “Sacred Hamadryas Baboon” on all fours, are arrayed opposite the furniture pieces and a black-and-white photo gallery of the Bugatti family of artists.

Separated from the other sculptures is Rembrandt’s “Leaping Kangaroo,” displayed in the gallery featuring Ettore and Jean Bugatti’s Grand Prix race cars, Roaring ’20s forerunners to what we now call Formula 1 racers. A blue-grey Bugatti Type 45 Grand Prix with exhaust piping running from front to rear reveals its vintage with a front-end crank to start its explosive engine. A silver Bugatti Type 37A Grand Prix antique masterpiece with its red leather two-seat interior and spare tire strapped to the long front end that encompasses a powerful for-its-time engine. You can see a model of that engine outside its handsomely designed housing. It stands right next to the “Leaping Kangaroo.” And for sound effects you can press a couple of buttons to hear the roar of each Bugatti Grand Prix racer.

But for sheer engineering artistry, it’s hard, perhaps impossible, to beat the elegantly sleek designs of the Bugatti roadsters of the 1930s. These cars and the others in this exhibit are from the collection of Judge John C. North of Easton, and have never before been exhibited in a museum setting.  Lee Glazer, AAM’s Senior Curator, curated the exhibition, and Ken Gross is the guest Curator

You can see that the Bugatti Type 57 Atalante coupe on display at Academy Art shows was previously owned in that the driver and passenger seats are a bit cracked, while the classic exterior lines are so captivatingly authentic that they rise above minor seat imperfections. The companion virtuoso vehicle, the Bugatti 57SC Atlantic sports model, gleams in showroom fresh splendor, with its pristine interior and peek-a-boo peek into its awesome engineering artistry. Surely, the Bugattis – Etorre and his son Jean – knew how to make beautiful cars way back then. But imagine trying to insure one. Not to mention mileage. Way better to experience these Bugattis as museum artifacts. Admission is free.

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To accommodate this never-seen-before exhibition at AAM, the annual museum members show has moved to the next-door Waterfowl Building.

The first object you encounter on arrival is Loretta Loman’s “Organic Farm” glazed stoneware ceramic that, to me, deserved an award. But Loman compensated as hers was one of the first  artworks sold. Just to the right of her piece is Anne Sharp’s Best in Show oil portrait “Eunice” of a woman in a red turban. Best painting went to James Plumb for his nearby still-life, “Three Garlics and Water” oil on canvas.

Other winners include Stephen Walker’s Best Eastern Shore Scene primitive-style oil, “Smoke Break”; Best Landscape, actually a seascape by James Sharf, for his “Normandy Coast Gale” oil; Liam Swadler’s Sporting Award for his “Dock Dog” digital photo of a pooch fresh from a Waterfowl Festival water dive; Best in Ceramics for Karen Bailor’s “World View,” an odd-shaped mouth to a vase; Judy Wolgast’s Best Print winner for her “Snowscape” aquatint reflection of trees on an icy surface; Bridget Sullivan’s Best in Mixed Media for her “Ancestral” allegory; the Trippe Gallery Work on Paper Award to Barrie Barnett’s “Sheep in Winter,” in need of a shearing; Excellence in Photography award to George Sass’ soft-focus “Rolling Tide”; Best in Wood to Terance John for his enigmatic “Memories #19”; Best in Fiber to Susan Fay Schauer of Zebra Gallery for her “Ajidamoonh,” squirrel with a paisley tail; and Best Contemporary Art for “Serengeti,” a collage-and-acrylic abstract by Susan Thomas.

All the framed images are within the 12-by-12-inch limits or variable computations therein. Considering the ample space inside the Waterfowl Building, those limits seem, well, limiting as compared to available space in the museum galleries. Better coordination next year, should the members’ show return to the Waterfowl Building, evacuated after the annual mid-November festival, could work better for all concerned.

‘Bugatti: Reaching for Perfection’