Forty years ago, a BMW 3.0 CSL painted by artist Alexander Calder took to the grid for the Le Mans 24 Hours and BMW's Art Cars have provided canvases for top artists since then.
Over the last four decades, 17 models have been given the unique 'Art Car' treatment from artists including Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, David Hockney and Jeff Koons. Highlights include the 1979 Warhol-designed BMW M1 Group 4 car, the 1995 David Hockney BMW 850 CSi and Jeff Koon’s striking BMW M3 GT2 racer of 2010.
This year, the iconic marketing initiative celebrates its 40th anniversary with a tour of its “Rolling Sculpture" cars. Following a joint launch in Hong Kong, at the Centre Pompidou, the BMW Museum in Munich, Germany, and the Concorso d’Eleganza at Lake Como, Italy further events will be held in New York, Miami and Shanghai later in the year to continue the festivities, bringing together a collection that was developed over the course of decades.
Each car reflects the thinking of the artist behind it. For example, Frank Stella sought to apply his geometric designs to wrap the entire body of the car with a blueprint. Rauschenberg had the idea of a ‘drivable museum’ as he selected classical motifs to paint, and Australian artist Michael Jagamara Nelson created a mosaic drawing on aboriginal Papunya art, applying a traditional sand painting technique.
Please see below for a montage of the 17 cars, and for many more pictures and information please head to their website here.