Unrelated automotive art and design…

While moving stuff around to refinish the floors in a few rooms I unintentionally dug up some old Sakhnoffsky prints (c.1957) I picked up a while back.

Still need to have them framed but I figured I’d snap some photos and do some research on them.

These are three separate “dye-transfer color reproductions” created for the Pedwin shoe company that were available by writing to various magazines that ran their ads.

(Better photos to come)

Count Alexis de Sakhnoffsky was born in 1901 and passed away in 1964.  He was a Russian-American industrial designer and was known principally for his streamline style automotive designs.

About the prints I own…

The Pedwin Sports Car Design Promotion: “Mr. Dream Car”

The man who invented dream cars is back with a complete new line of sleek imaginary sports cars. This month, American magazine readers will see once more a style of drawing that to many of them – especially those who were reading men’s magazines before World War II – is as familiar as the pin-up girls of Petty or Vargas. The sleek, imaginative dream cars of Count Alexis de Sakhnoffsky, which graced the pages of Esquire for years, are to appear in a series of monthly magazine ads.”

“The series will include 12 Sakhnoffsky designed sports cars and will run one each month in the pages of several national magazines as part of an advertising campaign for Pedwin Shoes. Reason for the sports car theme, says the shoe concern, is the “increasing interest nationally in sports cars by the young men of America.” Admirers of the Sakhnoffsky drawings will be able to obtain dye-transfer color reproductions by writing for them.

More info here – http://www.forgottenfiberglass.com/?p=8863

Also, inspired by my research, I picked up an Oct. 1957 copy of Speed Age magazine featuring the same artwork.