Cycling Art: Important or Not

[Canuk]

Cycling memorabilia and Artworks seem to be all over the auction sites and Etsy etc, but very little (if any) is discussed or raved about on RB. I'm mad for cycling posters, brochures and old workshop illustrations, and have been collecting them for about twenty years.

Is it just not that interesting to folks?

Here's one of my favourites by Canadian artist Ryan Heshka

 

[satkin55]

Cycling memorabilia and Artworks seem to be all over the auction sites and Etsy etc, but very little (if any) is discussed or raved about on RB. I'm mad for cycling posters, brochures and old workshop illustrations, and have been collecting them for about twenty years.

Is it just not that interesting to folks?

Here's one of my favourites by Canadian artist Ryan Heshka

That’s quite cool

 

[satkin55]

Here’s some art my wife made. A stitched picture that hangs on our wall.

 

[Canuk]

Here’s some art my wife made. A stitched picture that hangs on our wall.

View attachment 897459

I really like that! Cycling is probably the most philosophical of sports.

 

[Canuk]

This is a fabulous image from the front cover of a vintage Cinelli catalogue

 

[novocaine]

the question of arts importance, be in cycle related or not, has always been something of a complicated topic, often beset on both sides by entrenched opinions which are hard to prove with facts.

I'd say that art of all types has it's place and without it, there is little else that separates us from animals, however this view is somewhat lead by the fact I consider art, science and technology to be intertwined and I will often see things as art that others may not consider. The similar argument can be narrowed to art related to cycling. So yes, cycling art is important, but it's not just the perfect picture, it's in the very soul of what we do, in the design of a bike, the form of a frame, the interlacing of the spoke, the use of the tools buy the person, there is merit to it all.

or if you prefer
yer, good art is important, but it's in the eye of the beholder.

oh and mintsauce, it's also in mintsauce.

 

[Canuk]

I suppose all cycling components (and frames) have to be imagined in someone's head, in 'brain renderings' or 'art' before they can be put into physical form, often technically drawn or at least sketched first.

I remember watching Jack Taylor (I was only a lad) drawing up a frame at their workshop on quite a fancy, pukka drawing table and looking at the finished drawing and then at a frame sitting destined for America beside us, and marvelling about how these old men could have the skill and imagination to transform one into the other.

It seemed like magic to me as a fourteen year old at the time, like a supernatural skill, but to them it was just the everyday, and for sure parts of the process were quite mundane, but the finished frames were just incredible.

 

[Canuk]

Jack Taylor, Tour of Britain with 'Mondrian' graphics

 

[ChromeChainstay]

 

[Canuk]

Some of the steel art of the Taylor brothers.