A lot of the most popular car art on the market today depicts cars in a very specific setting. While we see plenty of paintings of cars at rest – parked up near a farmhouse, in a quiet residential street or wherever else you might care to depict one – the depiction of a car in a race is a very popular option. The different branches of motor sport – Indy Car, Formula One, the world famous Le Mans 24-hour race among them – do lend themselves to an artistic interpretation. Many car artists make motor sport their muse.

Why does car art gravitate towards racing scenes? There are a few reasons. First of all, a racing scene is one of the most immediately recognisable things in sport. Giving an impression of speed in a picture is something that many artists struggle with, as it is a lot more complicated than it looks. There are few better ways, once you have developed the talent, to capture the impressive nature of a sports car at top speed than to grab one scene, freeze it in time forever, and yet somehow maintain the impression of speed.

The race scene also offers artists the opportunity to put a ready-made “story” into their painting. The faces of the crowd (often responding to a daring overtaking maneuver, or the unsheathing of the chequered flag to signal a race winner) encapsulates why people love motor racing. With sports photography being such a winning medium, it is unsurprising that car art should gravitate to the same level.