Melbourne Brindle

Location: Auditorium /Temporarily Closed

The Artist’s Passion for the Automobile

Immerse your senses in a stunning collection of original paintings by Ewart Melbourne Brindle. The paintings on display at the Museum are part of a collection of 29 pieces donated by Charles Cawley in 1999 and include paintings of a number of Brindle’s personal cars.  His art is defined by not only the realism achieved, but by his use of trompe l’oeil, French for deceive the eye, in which realistic images are used to create the illusion that the objects exist in three dimensions.  Brindle used this technique to tell a story, sometimes quite literally, as in the case of the 1927 Bugatti Type 41 Royale, in which he includes a written history of the car that appears to be tucked into the lower rail of the painting’s frame.

Perhaps most significant to the collection is the painting of  Brindle’s 1913 Stevens-Duryea C Touring car, a vehicle Brindle himself donated to the Owls Head Transportation Museum in 1986 following his move to Camden, Maine in the 1980s.  Affectionately known as Stevie, it represents one of six such cars owned by the artist and was honored by being requested by his family to be included in Brindle’s funeral procession in 1995.  The car is featured in the exhibition along with one of Brindle’s preliminary studies as well as the finished painting.  Despite his love for all majestic automobiles, Brindle’s feelings can best be summed in his own words: “None commands my respect or stimulates my imagination as the Rolls-Royce, especially those of the golden era before World War I.”