Michael Satterfield
by TGR Staff – 10/22/2021
Creative artist Wallace Wyss (his last name rhymes with “Reese”), is one of the most diverse automotive illustrators working today, his evolution from automotive historian to automotive artist can be seen in his illustrations that have garnered interest worldwide.
Using oil, watercolor, and acrylic on heavy art paper for his working drawings, his sketches are enlarged to canvas giclee and then repainted in a process called embellishing. Wallace is known for capturing the ambiance in the background of his works, taking the viewer alongside to experience what it might have been like to be in the pits or grandstands in the 1960s.
A native of Detroit, Wyss started out as a writer, graduating from Wayne State U. in journalism. He then worked first as an ad copywriter before moving to California in 1969 to take a job with Motor Trend. By the mid-70, he was writing automotive histories including a best seller on Carrol Shelby, LeMans winner, and developer of the Cobra car, and the architect of Ford win at LeMans with the Ford GT.
Wyss had a long history with Shelby, the two first met in Detroit where Wyss was working as a journalist. During his lunch break, he was walking around a downtown park when he heard a roar of a V8 and looked up to see a red 427 Cobra drift around a corner, exhaust pipes belching fire. The Cobra driver, a diminutive lady, pulled up to him and asked which way was it to the Detroit convention center. Wyss recalls telling her “If you give me a ride I’ll show you.” The two roared off and five minutes later pulled up in front of the Convention Center where he met Carroll Shelby for the first time.” Wyss never got over that hair-raising ride.”
Wyss became an artist by accident, “One day I was planning to attend a car show in Beverly Hills to promote my new book so I sat down and made a portrait of Shelby” he recalls. I went to the show and sold my book to a show booth holder and then showed him a picture of the painting which I had left in my car. He said ‘Go get it –you sold that too.” After his first sale as an artist, he was determined to learn how he could make prints to reproduce and sell paintings along with his artwork.
Among his favorite paintings is one of a Cobra practicing for a race “During the research for my three Shelby books I met Bob Bondurant, the race driver, and mechanics Charlie Agapiou and Phil Remington–they’re all in my painting.” Wyss also likes pre-war classics, especially the streamlined art deco designs of Parisian coachbuilders in the late ’30s. “That was my first painting sale to a museum,” Wyss says “the Vanvooren bodied Bugatti Type 57C built for the Shah of Iran. I portrayed it in a Parisian setting.”
A car collector himself, he finds he likes what he calls “street restorations” because cars are meant to be driven. Over the years he has owned a number of exotic European sports cars, much like the cars he most enjoys painting.
For more information on Wallace Wyss, please contact him directly HERE.
