The title of “Father of Car Art” is one that people will argue over for as long as we have people painting cars – hopefully forever, then. There are many who will put up a persuasive case for Peter Helck. Others will put up an equally strong argument for Walter Gotschke. Although Helck had something of a head start – being born in 1893, 29 years before Gotschke – the younger man certainly turned out his fair share of evocative and classy works. Both men certainly had a passion for racing cars that was no less fierce in either man’s case for being born on different sides of the Atlantic.

Gotschke, for his part, was born in what is now the Czech Republic but back then was under Austrian rule. Little though it mattered, as twenty-six years later he moved to Stuttgart. While Germany at the time was in the hands of the Nazis, Gotschke’s work had an absence of political interest. His fascination was with the cars which, independently of Hitler’s plans for a Germany that would be the envy of the world in many ways, were doing pretty well themselves. Although Hitler sought to fund the automotive industry in order to bathe in the glory of its success, the truth is it was good enough under its own steam.

It was this world-class automotive industry that informed the best of Walter Gotschke’s works, although he was not limited to representing classic German cars. His depictions of Fiat and Ford automobiles are equally prized. Although Gotschke went blind in 2000, his works will remain world-class for all time.