Photos: Auto sketches from Detroit’s golden era you were never meant to see

from PBS NewsHour:

The upcoming documentary “American Dreaming,” features the designers who worked in the styling houses of Detroit’s automakers from 1946 to 1973. Watch the trailer for the film, which does not have a release date, above. Video by Jim Toscano and Danny Gianino of Freeage Productions.

Norbert Ostrowski began designing cars during the golden age of the American automobile. For 30 years, he worked in the styling departments of Detroit’s iconic brands: Chrysler, General Motors, AMC. But his sketches no longer exist. Like most of the early-stage artwork created by America’s auto designers, they’ve been destroyed.

Enter art collector Robert Edwards. The lifelong car enthusiast has curated the most comprehensive showing of those designs, spanning from 1946 to 1973. The exhibit, “American Dreaming: Detroit’s Golden Age of Automotive Design,” opened last week at Lawrence Technological University in suburban Detroit.

Featured in the collection is one of Ostrowski’s early sketches of an AMC Matador that Edwards found for sale in Ann Arbor. Ostrowski, now 77, recognized it immediately, Edwards said.

“His exact words were, ‘how the heck did that get out?’”

The designs were never meant to leave the studios. Automakers routinely destroyed early sketches for fear they would fall into the wrong hands.

But some of them made their way out of Ford, GM and Chrysler, as well as now defunct Studebaker, Packard and AMC. According to one designer, they were smuggled out in boxes with false bottoms. One employee famously hid his sketches inside the liner of his trench coat. “As an artist, you would hate to see your artwork destroyed,” Edwards said.

(click to enlarge all images)



Now they exist in attics and garages in the homes of the artists and their relatives. That’s where Edwards finds them. He’s been collecting these “bootleg” sketches for years, buying them from estate sales all over Michigan.

He calls the artwork the story of mid-century modern design in America.

“The car is such a part of the American psyche,” Edwards said. “It’s possibly the most important industrial object ever created. It has touched everyone’s life.”



Exhibit co-producer Greg Salustro said the designs harken back to a time when America thought anything was possible.

“This is the age that America thought they could overcome racism, land a man on the moon, win the Cold War,” he said. “This exhibit reflects this unbridled exuberance that took place at the time.”

Aside from the exhibit, the two auto enthusiasts are also co-producing a documentary called “American Dreaming.” It features interviews with the men and women who influenced mid-century American design and shaped the way we remember the golden era of the automobile.

It’s also a love letter to Detroit.

“This is a Detroit story,” said Salustro. “It’s about how Detroit inspired a nation.”

Just as the automakers jumped back into production in 1946 after its years supporting the Allied forces, today Detroit is determined to rebound after decades of decline and an unprecedented municipal bankruptcy, he said. “We want Detroit to be proud of its artistic heritage.”

See more photos of the innovative artwork that escaped the shredder:



CLICK TO ENLARGE ALL ABOVE IMAGES w/ Captions too!

Captions by Robert Edwards. Learn more about the upcoming documentary “American Dreaming”: Americandreamingfilm.com. Here you can also find out how to support the film, which is not yet complete and does not have a release date.

Jimi Hendrix: Hear My Train A Comin'on PBS' American Masters

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from PBS

Hear My Train A Comin’ unveils previously unseen performance footage and home movies taken by Hendrix and drummer Mitch Mitchell while sourcing an extensive archive of photographs, drawings, family letters and more to provide new insight into the musician’s personality and genius.

A pioneering electric guitarist, Hendrix (Nov. 27, 1942 — Sept. 18, 1970) had only four years of mainstream exposure and recognition, but his influential music and riveting stage presence left an enduring legacy. Hear My Train A Comin’ traces the guitarist’s remarkable journey from his hardscrabble beginnings in Seattle, through his stint as a US Army paratrooper, unknown sideman to R&B stars such as Little Richard, Joey Dee and the Isley Brothers and his discovery and ultimate international stardom.

Presented as part of a year-long celebration around his 70th birthday year, the two-hour Hear My Train A Comin’ uses Hendrix’s own words to tell his story, illustrated through archival interviews and illuminated with commentary from family, well-known friends and musicians including Paul McCartney, band members Noel Redding, Mitch Mitchell, Billy Cox, long-time sound engineer Eddie Kramer; Steve Winwood, Vernon Reid, Billy Gibbons, Dweezil Zappa and Dave Mason.

The film also features revealing glimpses into Jimi and his era from the three women closest to him: Linda Keith (the girlfriend who introduced Jimi to future manager Chas Chandler), Faye Pridgon (who befriended Hendrix in Harlem in the early 1960s) and Colette Mimram (one of the era’s most influential fashion trendsetters who provided inspiration for Hendrix’s signature look and created such memorable stage costumes as the beaded jacket Hendrix famously wore at Woodstock). The film details the meteoric rise of the Experience, the creation of his groundbreaking music, the building of Electric Lady Studios, his state-of-the-art recording facility in Greenwich Village and concludes with poignant footage from his final performance in Germany in September 1970, just 12 days before his death at age 27.



Among the previously unseen treasures in Hear My Train A Comin’ is recently uncovered film footage of Hendrix at the 1968 Miami Pop Festival. The first-ever major rock festival staged on the East Coast, the May 1968 Miami Pop Festival at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale, Fla., was the first event promoted by Woodstock organizer Michael Lang and Ric O’Barry (dolphin trainer for Flipper TV series), who were inspired by the June 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, where Hendrix made his U.S. debut and famously set fire to his guitar.

Two-time Grammy-winning director Bob Smeaton, whose credits include Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child, Hendrix: Band of Gypsys, Hendrix 70: Live at Woodstock, Festival Express and The Beatles Anthology, shows a side of Hendrix less frequently explored in Hear My Train A Comin’. Smeaton explains, “Jimi loved two things: women and playing guitar and that’s what Linda, Faye and Colette all told us. These women shed a totally different light on him than the guys who saw him onstage.”

On the same day as the film’s premiere, Experience Hendrix LLC and Legacy Recordings, the catalog division of Sony Music Entertainment, will release the expanded home video edition of the American Masters documentary, with never-before-released special performance features, on DVD and Blu-ray.