He might not have been the first to draw a racing car, but Ernest Montaut’s novel style sketched the first speed lines and distorted wheels to enhance the drama of velocity.
You won’t find his distinctive lithographic prints in the Louvre, but nothing captured the spectacle of early races like Montaut’s elegant artworks.
His extremes of perspective and wind-blown distortion of backgrounds all help focus on the racing drama of Edwardian titans.
A spectacular corner dice with a Fiat and Lorraine-Dietrich in the 1907 French Grand Prix, captured by Ernest Montaut
Original drawings and gouache paintings are now extraordinarily rare, but Montaut’s characteristic landscape prints have kept his name alive.
Whether it’s the twisting mountain roads of the Targa Florio or a lone Blériot monoplane over rough seas, the line work and pastel washes are instantly recognisable.
High-speed drama captured Montaut’s imagination, never more so than his 1904 Vanderbilt Cup composition of Fernand Gabriel gunning his Lorraine-Dietrich over a railway crossing with an express steam train close to a collision.
This 1905 Michelin poster by Ernest Montaut celebrated road over rail
