The Car Man

by Robert Maniscalco

I caught up with a piece of automotive history the other day, in the person of legendary illustrator, Ted Paul. Ted is one of the giants from the studio days, back in the 50s, 60s and 70s, when a small handful of artists hand-painted pretty much all the ads and catalogues for the auto industry, right here in Detroit. "There aren't many of us left," sighs Ted. "I was a car man," he says, matter-of-factly. In those days there was a hierarchy of artists and the car men were, as one might expect, the stars.

Other artists, like my father Joseph Maniscalco, would do the backgrounds and people the scene with figures. But the car was almost always the main event. More often than not, many artists would work on one image. Each artist had their specialty, for which they were known. But few artists could render the chrome monsters like Ted Paul. "Now, computers have taken it all over," says Paul with a still detectable wistfulness. Since the advent of computers, there has been very little need for artists like Ted Paul, whose paintings of cars were stretched and idealized into a magnificent fantasy world of elegance and grace. So, what becomes of an artist whose gift is no longer "needed?" Not to worry. Ted Paul has found his niche among fine artists and collectors, where his work is loved and appreciated for the skill and craftsmanship only a great car man can bring.

He still remembers the old days, though. "There was great camaraderie back in the studio days. Everyone knew everybody. Downtown Detroit was the center of all the action." The Post Bar was the big hangout for these artists, with the Caucus Club and the Chop House a close second. There were a handful of studios, where top artists worked long hours, often pulling consecutive all-nighters, to produce the car catalogues and ad campaigns back in Detroit's heyday of illustration. At one point, New Center Studios provided a full workload for 150 artists at a time. "There was so much work at that time. There was a lot of pressure to produce, and with it came a lot of drinking and the occasional suicide." Ah, the good old days.

As competitive and ruthless as it was in those days I have never heard them remembered with anything less than fondness. It was arguably one of the most amazing epochs of automotive history, certainly a major part of Detroit's distinct cultural heritage.

The computer ended this amazing period in the world of illustration. But any serious car buff might want to spend an evening with a man like Ted. He still has many of the early renderings of the sleek cars he immortalized. "So many of the good artists are gone now. Guys like Bob Sutton, another car man, Doug Parrish, a great all-around artist. There was Jerry Campbell, one of the best lettering men around. And of course your father's still going strong," he adds, nodding his head as if to remind me of what I am happy to report, I already know. There aren't many left. These guys were the best in the world at what they did.

It was glamorous work. "Hollywood models would come in and we'd explain what we needed. There was a lot of activity, all the time." My sordid imagination takes it from there; after all, this was the swinging sixties. "Anyway," he interrupted, "it beat working in the factory," which Ted did early on. After graduating from Lincoln High School in Warren in the 40's, Ted went to work at Carboloy Tool & Die. After his service during WWII, Ted attended Menzinger Art School, which led to a job at Menzinger Studios. He left Menzinger to go to McNamara Studio in 1955. For the next thirty years, Ted Paul became a familiar name at Graphic House, Art Greenwald and BZ Studios while he freelanced on campaigns for the big three auto companies.

Ted slipped easily into fine art as the illustration business, as he knew it, began to die. "I just didn't have the time for fine art when I was working in the business. Now, confronted with a white canvas, he is free to imagine whatever he wants. Ted has done it all since retiring into his current career. "I get these beautiful ideas in my mind and then I go to work on them." Ted sometimes has three or four paintings going on at once. He puts one down when another grabs his attention. "I look around and see things. There was a great old house I drove by for years. One day I decided to take a few roles of film. A week later they tore it down. I thought it might make a nice painting." It does. Paul drives his family crazy on road trips, stopping often to take pictures along the way.

The recognition of beauty, almost like a voyeur, is a constant theme in my conversations with realists like Paul. "I see beauty in things other people usually take for granted." He is drawn to old beaten down houses. In this way his work reminds the viewer of Andrew Wyeth rather than say, Norman Rockwell, who tended to sentimentalize the world around him. "I just don't like clean, modern houses. I can't help it, I like old barns, lighthouses, trains, fire plugs, things like that." No one can paint them with the skill of a Ted Paul. He finds an eccentricity in his subjects that creates interest in what might otherwise be considered mundane. His work is often formatted in a cock-eyed, tilted perspective, introducing a bit of tension. "Hopper did that all the time. He wasn't a great painter, in terms of his skill, but he always treated his subjects in an interesting way. He would indicate things, sometimes rather sloppily, but it always worked."

Ted Paul's first painting experiences were with air-brush retouching. Eventually, he found his way into painting cars, developing considerable deftness and control of the brush. "I leaned toward cars early on, because that's where the work was." His illustration work was most often painted in gauche, which is like watercolor, except opaque. Figures don't appear in his work very often.

"I try to do something good, that I think is good, has some feeling to it." For Ted, skill plays a large part of what he's about as an artist. "I'm not a big fan of Picasso. I used to think Van Gogh was some kind of a nut but when I really looked into his work I could see he had to have had some kind of talent to throw paint around like that."

Ted relates to color in a very basic way, using complements extensively, to create harmony and unity, rather than using neutrals to tone down colors. I ask him about his amazing handling of edges and if he has any tips for painting chrome. He shrugs his shoulders. The work speaks for itself. The car man is finished for today. There's nothing more to say for now. After all, he's a painter, not a philosopher.