Love on a Rainy Afternoon Pontiac Bonneville Illustration Art

Even on a rainy day, life can't be better when there is a 1969 Pontiac Bonneville in the picture. The present Arthur "Art" Fitzpatrick & Van Kaufman collaborative automobile ad painting goes beyond motoring culture and ventures deeply into the realm of fine art. It would not go too far to say that, Art Fitzpatrick may be the titularless father of Photo Realism. His painting of the Pontiac Bonneville is a visually striking, photorealistic airbrush work characterized by shiny chrome, snappy color, reflective glass, and water droplets demonstrating Fitzpatrick's technical mastery and predating and perhaps inspiring the Photo-Realism art movement of the late 1960s. Of particular note is the work of the renowned photorealist artist Robert Bechtle, whose paintings focus on shiny cars. The other artist of this tag team painting is Van Kaufman, who deftly renders the background and figural group in a looser Post-Impressionist style. Why are Fitzpatrick and Kaufman not fine art superstars whose work hangs in every major museum? It's because the museum bias favors so-called fine art over commercial art, even if the commercial artists may have inspired a major American art movement. The great car illustrators commissioned by major brands, in this case GM, were master craftsmen and brilliant artists, yet they were overlooked, understudied, and ignored until now. With "Pontiac Ventura Advertisement," Fitzpatrick and Kaufman are launched into the fine art world and will most likely receive tepid attention from major museum curators who have little curiosity beyond the current crop of young, ultra-contemporary artists, most of whom, at best, are derivative artists.
Another highly creative aspect of this painting is its collaborative nature, where two artists with different styles come together to create a work that seamlessly unifies their styles;
Photo-Realism and Post Impressionism.
The present car advertisement is initialed AF, VK lower left, and is framed under plexiglass to a size of 23.25 x 24.25. The present work was published as a national ad under the Pontiac tagline "Pontiac break away."