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General Motor’s Turbine Firebirds
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Are Coming to Hershey
HOTOGRAPHS OF
Legendary Harley Earl designed Dream Cars
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at the Antique Auto Museum
URAL CUBAN FARM LIFE
September 27 through October 12
Fifty years ago, before the internet, television and modern mass market-
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ing transformed how we shop for our cars, America’s automakers went
to great lengths to dazzle the public with their annual offerings. Each
year, the new designs would make their debut to much fanfare and public
Black and white photographs depicting tobacco farmers, their families and a rural land-
scape in Cuba’s Pinar del Rio Province are on view in the Pfundt Gallery at the James A.
excitement. Dealer’s often papered their windows in anticipation of the
Michener Art Museum in Doylestown now through January 4, 2009. Cuba: Camp Adentro, crowds that would lineup outside for a ﬁ rst look at a much anticipated new
meaning “deep within the country,” is a series by Philadelphia photographer Susan S.
model or the redesign of a best-selling favorite.
Bank who stumbled upon an agricultural community in the Valley of Vinales in 2002 while
on break from a project in Havana. Working simply with a 35mm camera on return visits
to barrio Cuajaní over the next ﬁ ve years, Bank documented 10 households who appeared
In many cases, people really did not know what
While all the major automakers built dream
a series of three highly aerodynamic vehicles
to have never before been photographed, growing their own food, surviving without any
to expect. Now days, thanks to TV commer-
cars for the auto shows, the best known and
inspired by the jet age. Firebird I made its
modern conveniences and a living a life ﬁ rmly anchored in family, neighbors, animals and
cials and an abundance of automotive publica-
probably the most enduring came from GM in
debut in 1954, 13 years before General Motors
love of their land.
tions and websites, we all know almost exactly
the 1950s. GM took the concept to its highest
reapplied the name to its new Pontiac pony car.
what every new car will look like long before
level by creating the Motorama, an all-General
Firebird I was meant as a showcase for turbine
it reaches a dealer’s showroom. Beginning in
Motors show that traveled across the country
power and its aero theme originated in the
the late 1930s Detroit’s automakers began to
in convoy of 125 tractor trailers complete with
Douglas F4D Skyray jet airplane, as evidenced
introduce their new ideas through what came
stage hands, singers, actors, musicians and
by its needle nose, single-seat bubble cockpit,
to be known as concept or Dream Cars. These
technicians. Of course, the real stars of this
wings and tailﬁ n. Its body was constructed of
machines were straight out of the design studio
show were the cars. Initially designed in large
ﬁ berglass and wind tunnel tests indicated it was
and they were intended to capture the imagina-
part by Harley Earl, General Motors legendary
capable of traveling at more than 200 miles per
tion of the car-buying public. Beautiful, striking
ﬁ rst styling chief, these vehicles were offered as
hour. The turbine engine produced about 400
and outrageous they sometimes gave hints of
a glimpse into the corporation’s and America’s
horsepower and fuel economy was roughly 5
the new technology and features that buyers
automotive future.
miles per gallon.
might expect to ﬁ nd in their production car of
In conjunction with this
the future. These cars traveled the country star-
Among the most enduring of the Motorama’s
exhibition, the Museum
ring in auto shows from coast to coast.
More...
Dream Cars are the turbine-powered Firebirds,
presents an artist’s
lecture and book sign-
ing with Susan S. Bank
on Tuesday, October 14,
2008 from 1:00 to 2:00
p.m. The fee is $8.00
per member and $12.00
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per non-member and in-
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cludes general Museum
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admission.
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According to Kristy Krivitsky, the Museum’s “Having grown-up in a depressed but culturally of 84 pages, 48 black
Associate Curator of Contemporary Art, “Susan rich New England island village in the 1940s, I and white images printed in quad-tone, a
Bank’s photographs are not just documents of shared with the campesinos (tobacco farmers) a preface by the artist and an essay by esteemed
farmers living in rural Cuba. They are power- sense of ‘tamed space’ and community life,” ex- Cuban art critic Juan Antonio Molina.
ful compositions in which people, animals and plains Bank in the preface of the exhibition cata-
landscape are integrated into a new kind of logue. “Unlike Walker Evans who was assigned
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whole. The photographs act as a visual diary of to Cuba in 1933 to expose poverty for Carlton
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her time immersed in that culture and the result Beals’ book The Crime of Cuba, or Dorothea
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is poetic, fantastical and compelling.” Lange who followed migrant workers during the
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Great Depression for the Farm Security Adminis-
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Bank received her artistic training at the Univer- tration, I had no political agenda. I had no intent
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sity of the Arts in Philadelphia, and also studied to disturb life in el campo. I did, however, have
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in Mexico with the renowned photographers to guard against drifting into a romantic vision
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Mary Ellen Mark and Graciela Iturbide and later of a way of life that on the surface appeared to
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with Constantine Manos in Havana. Her work be exotic and perfectly harmonious.”
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has been published in such prestigious publica-
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tions as Camera Arts and The Photo Review. Her goal, as she says, was both “to show the
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The Campo Adentro series has received various raw, essential details of daily life and at the
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local and national awards including the Fleischer same time dig deeper, to transcend the reality
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Challenge Award, Perkins Center Juror’s Award, of what is there, and to confront the enigma of
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Texas Photo Project and Santa Fe Project human nature.”
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Competition Juror’s Choice Award. Bank was the
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recipient of a Leeway Foundation grant in 2002. An accompanying monograph entitled Cuba:
Prior to Cuba: Campo Adentro, Bank’s most Campo Adentro is available for $50.00 in the
widely recognized work is a series of photo- Museum Shop ($45.00 for Museum members).
graphs that document the people of the resort Published in June 2008 by Sagamore Press
town of Salisbury Beach, Massachusetts. (Philadelphia), this bilingual hardcover consists
BL
18 Bucks Lehigh Magazine
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