Outstanding Le Mans Motor Racing Scene by F. Gordon Crosby 

Frederick Gordon Crosby (British, 1895-1943).  Oil on canvas motor racing scene through a wooded area, depicting a dramatic moment when Car 55 is swerving to avoid two trees that have fallen across the course after a car has crashed through them.  The crashed car is ablaze and the driver is fleeing from the wreckage, her racing uniform ignited in flames, signed F. Gordon Crosby / Le Mans/  1933; 23.5 x 35.25 in. (sight)

Click here for to view original film from the 1933 Le Mans Grand Prix,  which shows the wreckage featured in the above work. 

Gordon Crosby is one of the most significant and prolific motor racing artists, and his works are highly collectible.  He worked a short time in the Daimler drawing office before joining the staff of the British weekly magazine The Autocar around 1907 or 1908.  Throughout the early decades of the 19th century he worked primarily as an illustrator for The Autocar.  Photography was not yet used for such publications, so it was Gordon Crosby’s art that brought the races to life for eager readers each week.  Time was of the essence when working with such a rapid publication schedule, so most of Gordon Crosby’s known works are drawings in various media on paper: pen-and-ink, pen-and-wash, gouache, or charcoal.  However, he was also a talented painter and sculptor. 

His oil paintings, especially those of motoring, were usually reserved for special commissions such as racing posters.  The majority of the artist’s oil paintings are World War I aircraft (Gordon Crosby worked with the Air Ministry during the war to produce technical drawings of crashed German aircraft to benefit Allied intelligence).

Gordon Crosby was one of multiple illustrators that traveled the racing circuit, but his work established “the standard by which all motoring artists would be judged”.  This reputation is all the more impressive considering Gordon Crosby was a self-taught artist.  He is credited with pioneering the use of the exploded drawing (a technical drawing or diagram to show the assembly order of various parts) and the technical cutaway (the removal of a portion of the exterior of an automobile make the internal workings visible).  In addition, his ability to translate the thrill and drama of a race with its roaring engines and speeding machinery is unrivaled.  Racing writer W.F. Bradley traveled frequently with the artist to races and motor shows and reflected on his abilities, “It was an education to watch him work at these shows.  He would stand imperturbably in a crowded gangway, a sketchbook precariously balanced against his body, producing perfect lines such as few men could draw in the seclusion of a studio.” 

During his lifetime and for decades after his death, his works were widely considered to be mere illustrations rather than collectible artwork.  Many of his original works of art were destroyed or discarded after their publication, adding to the value of the surviving works.  It was not until the late 1960s and early 1970s when an editor at The Autocar, Peter Garnier, began to take interest in Gordon Crosby and his work was seen in a new light.  Garnier became the expert on the subject and began efforts to document and preserve remaining artwork at the magazine, culminating in the publication of a 1978 monograph The Art of Gordon Crosby. 

The 1933 Le Mans 24 Hours, depicted in the presented canvas, was an exciting race with the closest finish to date at the time, and the second-closest in the race’s current history.  According to records of the race, only 13 of the race’s 29 starters finished.  In this work Gordon Crosby highlights an extremely dramatic moment from the race, when Mrs. Odette Sico lost control of her Alfa Romeo near Amage and crashed into two pine trees on the roadside before catching fire.  She was ejected from the car on impact and was helped to her feet by a police officer that had been stationed along the course.  Two other cars had to react quickly to avoid hitting the downed pine trees which were blocking the course.  In the painting, Sico can be seen fleeing the wreckage, her uniform on fire, and the cars driven by Sommer and a driver from the Riley team are shown as they navigate past the treacherous crash.  Sico, who was competing in the race for the fourth time, survived the crash, but never competed again.

Although most of the details in the presented painting match the accounts of the crash, it seems Gordon Crosby did employ some artistic license when he painted the numbers on the cars, as the numbers he used were not numbers used by any of the cars in the 1933 Le Mans.  It is not known if this painting was ever published as in illustration.

Gordon Crosby’s remaining original works of art add a layer of richness to his lasting legacy.   Motoring journalist and Autocar columnist Eoin Young praises Gordon Crosby as an “illustrator with  such outstanding creative and artistic ability that he is able to raise his pictorial records into works of art—to put a whole lot more into his illustrations than the job requires.”
 
Bibliography:
Eoin Young, “The Motoring Art of Gordon Crosby,” New Zealand Classic Car Magazine, issue 195, 18 February 2010.

Not examined outside of frame.