Alan Fearnley’s moody paintings of beautiful vehicles have inspired an international following
FROM THE most unlikely of sources springs sometimes the most extraordinary result. In the case of the automotive art of Alan Fearnley its ultimate source was the cars owned by a local abattoir in Yorkshire where he grew up.
As a 10-year-old boy he and his friends would often lie underneath these cars – a silver Allard Coupe and a Mercedes 300SL Gullwing – trying to understand the workings of the suspension and drive-train. Both cars were pretty exotic in the years following the second World War in Britain and must have seemed real exotica to young Alan.
Following school, Fearnley studied at Batley College of Art where initially, his paintings predominantly featured railway architecture and landscape but he soon moved towards transport-orientated mechanical subjects, especially motor racing. It’s a love that Fearnley retains to this day.
This lifelong, deep interest in all forms of motoring and especially motor sport informs his paintings and make his oil on canvas paintings so demonstratative of that knowledge and understanding of his subjects.
His motor racing paintings appear in private collections worldwide as well as in the offices of Rolls-Royce, Mercedes-Benz and Porsche, to name but a few.
But Fearnley’s painting goes far beyond simply recording moments on track.
“We should be able to get more into it and create atmosphere and a sense of time and place as well as an element of romance surrounding the car,” says Fearnley.
And this is the very quality that sets Fearnley’s painting apart from other motoring artists with the possible exception of the great American automotive artist Peter Helck.
In many of Fearnley’s paintings the car is seemingly relegated to being a prop in the background but it the very action of creating a moment in time and mood into which the car fits that tells more about the car and its character than any straightforward depiction of it would ever have done.
A favourite scene recreated by Fearnley again and again is a picnic into the background of which the car is dropped as part of the backdrop.
These paintings have a nostalgic touch, not unlike that created in the paintings of Norman Rockwell, an artist admired by Fearnley.
The public likes Fearnley’s unique style and his paintings attract a large international following.
Fearnley is convinced that if the “enthusiast” school of painting is ever to be recognised and valued as he believes it ought to be, then it must produce pictures of such an artistic quality that they can be appreciated and valued by art lovers.
At the same time they must also have sufficient pictorial merit that they can be hung anywhere and not just in the study of car enthusiasts.
Judging from the reaction his paintings have achieved worldwide, Alan Fearnley has achieved just that.
For more information on the paintings of Alan Fearnley go to alanfearnley.co.uk