Peter Helck Painting: “The match race that never happened”
I recently purchased seven works of art created by my favorite racing artist Peter Helck. The above painting depicted an imaginary match race between Barney's Oldfield's Green Dragon and Walter Christie's 1906 V-4 Front-Wheel Drive Christie.
Below is today's research on this beautiful 6" x 12" "casein on board" painting.
Enjoy,
Howard Kroplick
Bonhams auctioned a pencil sketch of the painting in 2029 entitled "Barney Oldfield in The Green Dragon. Bonhams noted "pencil sketch, depicting Oldfield overtaking a front- engined Christie in an Empire Trophy Race, circa 1906, on paper 7 x 10in, mounted, framed and glazed."
The driver of the Christie was not identifed.
In Peter Helck's wonderful 1975 book "Great Auto Races", Peter depicts two related imaginary match races. Here is the Christie's Front-Wheel Driver showing the "the 1906 V-4 in action."
In this painting, Helck depicts the 1905 Premier built for the 1905 Vanderbilt Cup Race with Barney Oldfield's Green Dragon. He notes " ther is no evidence that the huge, naked Premier ever matched paces with B.O.'s "Green Dragon" as shown in the painting (another bit of whimsy).
Barney Oldfield in the 1907 V-4 Christie, the next front-wheel driver after the 1906 Christie was wrecked.
As documented on VanderbiltCupRaces.com, Peter Helck and Barney Oldfield became friends in 1945.
Comments
Wonderful! I have never seen that work by Peter Helck. I have his original painting of the Christie that was shown in the “Great Auto Races”. He dedicated it to Henry Tredwell, grandson of one of Christie’s investors, if I recall correctly.
Huge fan here!
Love this feature.
Beautiful painting! Enjoy!
Barney Oldfield and Walter Christie did race against each other, in Detroit, 1909, see attached image.
Peter Helck created this painting for Henry Tredwell Jr in 1961, as a thank you to him for loaning all the rare Christie memorabilia that led to the first history of Christie published in the Upper Hudson Valley Automobilist back then. I have that archive, some of which help me create all the drawings needed for the 1909 Christie racer recreation, debuted at the Goodwood Festival of Speed this year.
Here is the 1909 Christie recreation just completed this year after a 10 year effort by Jim Bartel in Detroit. I created all the drawings and casting patterns. Mario Andretti drove it last month a the M1 Concourse track in Michigan.