Prints and paint, but no photoshop. The founder of the excellent formfreu.de, Markus Haub, transforms vintage racing pictures into the coolest car art we've seen all year.
Artist and former car designer Markus Haub has been busy for the past three years making "Racing Legends," a series of treated photographs that blow our minds. If you've ever been to his site, you'll see that Mr. Haub is a bit of a gearhead, with all kinds of jaw-dropping vintage exotica coming in front of his camera. Rather than leave well enough alone with pictures of Bizarrinis and Gulf 917s, he takes his photos, tweaks them digitally, and then starts going wild with the prints.
He scratches, renders, and paints on his pictures in a kind of Pop Art collage, not feeling very restricted in what he can or can't put in. We end up with blocks of color over a 275 GTB, blotches and scratches over a Miura, and drips and text spilling across a Porsche 906.
There are over 200 pieces in "Racing Legends," and they've been seen in Spain, Germany, France and New York. Last year the inimitable Cité de l'Automobile, Musée National de France-Collection Schlumpf in Mulhouse, France, the world's biggest car museum, showed some of his series. Now you can find and buy his work at his new website speedstar-gallery.com. You can also commission your own pieces, and they only take about two months to make. If you do so, we will be so jealous that we might come to your house and rob you.
All in all, we are totally blown away by Markus' work. It's so refreshing to see a new take on some of the coolest cars in the world, especially one that captures the vibrancy and personality of the races that make these cars come alive. We'll stay avid fans of his work for some time, unlike much of the disposable artsy-farsty car shots we run through every day.
Don't forget to click through the pictures to see them in their full-frame glory.