The Art of Gordon Crosby

Sept/Oct 2020 edition
Issue #12 AutoMobilia Resource Magazine
Bob Ames

Crosby was a master caricaturist. If ever any of these were to come to market I’d say $10-15,000. Unless it is of someone much remembered, then more. If one of those hung over the RAC clubhouse urinals… it’s stolen.

Peter Helck is deservedly the doyen of American automotive artists and his work illustrating our racing history is particularly revered.  But what of his English counterpart, Frederick Gordon Crosby?

​Helck and Crosby were for many years, contemporaries and admirers of each other’s work. Indeed, upon hearing of Crosby’s passing in 1943 Helck wrote the English artist’s employer, The Autocar, to say that in their sphere Crosby “was the greatest artist that had ever been”.  Certainly, praise to be considered seriously. It is important however, particularly in terms of availability and value, to differentiate between these two greats.

Gordon Crosby spent nearly his entire working career as an employee of the English weekly magazine The Autocar, was salaried and produced much of his work to deadlines. Helck, on the other hand, had a variety of clients, and produced advertising illustrations for clients ranging from Mack Trucks to Johnnie Walker Whiskey as well as magazine cover art, and in later years private commission work for his many admirers.

​While The Autocar retained Crosby’s magazine artwork, Helck’s went to a great many clients over many more years. Peter Garnier’s book, “The Art of Gordon Crosby,” estimates more than 600 examples of Helck’s work are in private hands, a number I believe to be very low if preliminary works and drawings are included. Crosby worked in pen and ink, charcoal, gouache, and oils, and his output was perhaps 300 finished works owned by The Autocar and, but a few private commissions, made for little supply to satisfy burgeoning collector interest.  

“Searchlight Racing,” Charcoal. Certainly $25-30,000. Unless you own the winning Bentley, then rather more! Fortunately Evert doesn’t know I have this particular Crosby! A large finished motor racing oil would fetch $40-50,000 and more for the early heroic stuff done in period.

Incredibly in the late 1980s, The Autocar was literally throwing out original artwork. Happily, Robert Brooks, having recently left Christies to form his own auction company, was able to consign the remaining Crosby work which was sold at auction in London on November 19, 1990 and in Monaco on May 7, 1991.

At the London sale I bid on several paintings and acquired none, as prices in many cases blew right past high estimates of up to $40,000.  The buyer of nearly all was my friend Evert Louwman, in whose world-renowned automobile museum in the city of The Hague, Netherlands, these are now displayed in a gallery setting.  Thankfully, at the Monaco sale Evert took pity on me and I was able to buy three iconic Crosbys.

There is no catalog raisonné of Crosby’s work.  There is Garnier’s book, The Brooks Catalogs, a modest publication of 1991 by The Autocar’s owner Haymarket Press “The Art of Autocar & Motor,” and of course, surviving copies of yellowed eighty plus year weekly pulp magazines.  See also Automobile Quarterly Volume IV Number 4.

Left: Invicta, mountain racing scene in charcoal.

Like many of his illustrator contemporaries, Gordon Crosby had a desire to be recognized as well in the world of fine art.  He exhibited three times at the Royal Academy.  Shockingly one of these submissions from 1921 a landscape depicting Mullion Cove in Cornwall, was listed recently on eBay at $58,000!

The landscape dominant Kaye Don on Miss England II setting world water speed record at 110.223 mph in July 1931. Painted by Crosby contemporaneously. Bought from a dealer friend at Beaulieu Autojumble. Value around $25-$30,000.

To the extent they exist small Autocar interior charcoals, $5,000 and up. At the other end of the financial spectrum are two print folios of some of Crosby’s best work, The Endless Quest for Speed and Meteors of Road and Track.  These turn up at swap meets and on the internet for $50-$100, often incomplete.

Gordon Crosby Books & Catalogs

Just a few years ago at the Beaulieu Autojumble I was able to buy, from a dealer friend, a magnificent oil painting of Kaye Don on Miss England II setting a world water speed record in 1931 on Lake Garda.  This one, an example foremost of Crosby’s skill as a landscape artist, hangs in our living room.

Crosby’s work also included aviation subjects including The Battle of Britain.  His son, an RAF fighter pilot, was killed in battle and a broken-hearted father passed soon after.

Bob Ames

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