DIEGO RIVERA'S PORTRAIT OF EDSEL FORD

Here are some things to think about as you study the illustration

on the dust jacket of the Edsel biography by Henry Dominguez.

by Dave Cole

WHEN YOU BUY A COPY of the new hook. Edsel: The Story of Henry lord's Forgotten Son. re­

viewed 111 the March-April V-8

Times, you get on the dust jacket as

good a color reproduction of Diego Rivera's 1932

portrait o\' Edsel Ford as you're ever likely to rind. At

least, you get most of it. The right and left margins

are cropped a bit to lit the 6 by 7 inch space avail­

able for it on the jacket. Author Henry Dominguez

had his choice of several portraits and photos of Ed­

sel to use on the jacket, and in selecting this one, he

certainly picked the most interesting one, as it tells a

great deal more about the subject than simply how

Edsel Ford appeared to the artist. Dominguez devotes a page of his biography of

Edsel to the painting of this portrait. Rivera was in

the midst of working on the Detroit Industry fres­

coes at the Detroit Institute of Arts, which were be­

ing paid for by Edsel Ford personally, and he want­

ed to do something to thank his benefactor, so he of­

fered to paint a portrait

o\~ his patron. After

three solid months o

labor at the DIA, he was

reads for a break. So it

was that in November,

lc)32, Rivera took off time

to do this painting. Edse

sat for Rivera for three

days, and loaned Rivera

several photos o\ himsell so

that the painting could be

completed. The result was a large

painting done in oil on canvas,

a much different medium from the frescoes he was doing at the

DIA. where the paint actually

permeates the fresh plaster while it is wet. The paint­

ing is 38': inches high and 49'4 inches wide—an

unusual horizontal format. Rivera presented the por­

trait to Edsel, who hung it at the top of the grand

stairway at his home at Gaukler Pointe. where it

stayed for many years. After the death of Edsel's

widow, Eleanor Ford, in 1976. the portrait was giv­

en to the Detroit Institute of Arts, and a photograph­

ic copy of it was hung in the original location at the

head of the stairs. Edsel reportedh thought the

painting was not a particularly good likeness of him.

but Dominguez points but that Edsel never seemed to like any of the other portraits that were done of

him, either. In Rivera's painting, Edsel looks a hit like a car­

toon figure, but that was Rivera's style. Edsel's hands rest on the table in front o\ him and he looks

straight at the viewer. What do you read in his face'1

Henry Dominguez sees his inner strength and confi­

dence. Robert l.accv. who devotes considerable space to this portrait in his hook, lord: The Men and

the Machine, goes further. He says the portrait cap­

tures Edsel's gentleness and vulnerability; that he

appears open and defenseless, and may

even show "some deep, submerged

wincing of pain."

But it is the setting in which

Rivera placed the figure of Ed­

sel Ford that makes this por­

trait so unusual and pro­

vocative. Rivera shows

Edsel in an automobile

design studio. Domin­

guez figures it must

have been a studio at

the Briggs Manu­

facturing Compa­

ny, where most

^k o\ ford's de­

sign work was

handled at the

:i

• Walter T. Fishleigh should be better known among Ford V-8 enthusiasts, as it w a s his designs, like this 1930 proposal for a coupe, that first got Edsel Ford interested in streamlining. This sketch w as m a d e from a Ford factory photo of a wooden styling model of a coupe very similar to

the one in the Diego Rivera portrait of Edsel Ford.

time. Lacey says Edsel had his own car design stu­

dio set up at the Lincoln plant. It is also possible that

the studio setting is simply patterned after the typi­

cal studio and is not intended to be anywhere in par­

ticular. What this does, however, is show how much

Rivera appreciated and respected Edsel's abilities as

a designer of automobiles. O n the table in front of Edsel lies an assortment

of drafting tools—a French curve, a 30°-60° triangle,

a sharp yellow pencil and a pair of dividers. But

there is no drawing here, nor even any paper. What

is the message here? Dominguez tells us that Edsel

designed cars by talking and gesturing with his

hands, and Bob Gregorie interpreted those instruc­

tions and committed them to paper. Perhaps Rivera

is saying here that Edsel had the capability of using those tools but did not do so.

In the background are three large blackboards

propped up on rolling stands, of the sort used in auto

designers' studios. They are arranged as if in a trip­

tych, all facing Edsel. Only one end of each black­

board at the sides is visible. The one on the right is blank, but the one on the left has writing on it. It is

the inscription in which Rivera describes his paint­

ing. It says:

VERDADERD RETRATO

PEL SENDR EDSEL B. FORD IN6ENIER0 INDUSTRIAL

y PRESIDENTE DE LA CO-

MISI6N oE ARTE DE LA CIUDAD DE DETROIT

ESTADD DE MICHIGAN

E. U. DE AMERICA.

&*» $ ^ L0 PINT0

EL MES DE NDVIEMBRE DE mi

22

which, translated from the original Spanish,

means: TRUE PORTRAIT

Of MR. EDSEI B. fORD,

INDUSTRIAL EHGMEEk

AND PRESIDENT Of THE COM­MISSION Of ART Of THE

CITV Of DETROIT, nkTE Of MICHIGAN,

U. S. Of AMERICA. &*» $**•**. PAINTED IT

THE MONTH Of NOVEMBER Of

1131.

In cropping the portrait for use on the dust jack­

et, the left hand portion of each line was lost, unfor­

tunately. Such inscriptions on paintings are rather unusual, but Rivera sometimes included an informa­

tive paragraph on his major works. Indeed, there is a

similar inscription on the lower right corner of one

of the main murals at the DIA. There, a careful

viewer will see the image of Dr. William R. Valen-

tiner, who was the director of the museum at the

time, holding a stack of papers, on which Rivera

tells of painting the frescoes between July 25, 1932,

and March 13, 1933, and acknowledges the fact that

they are a gift to the city of Detroit from Edsel B. Ford, president of the Arts Commission.

But it is on the third blackboard, directly behind

the figure of Edsel Ford, that a car enthusiast's

attention centers. Upon it is an outline drawing

in large scale, perhaps full size, of a streamlined

coupe. It does not look like any automobile ever

built by the Ford Motor Company, but what is it?

Lacey says Rivera found Edsel "working ... on the

designs for a new aerodynamic Lincoln coupe." This

is possible, but not very likely. The wheelbase of this little coupe is too short for a Lincoln. Even without a scale or any specifications, w e know that the typi­cal automobile tire was about 28 to 30 inches in di­ameter around 1932. If w e assume a tire diameter of 30 inches, by scaling between the centers of the wheels, w e can measure a wheelbase of about 103 inches—about the length of the Model A Ford wheelbase.

Dominguez comes closer to identifying the little car on the blackboard. H e says it is a de­sign proposal done by an early designer at Ford. N o further in­formation is found in the text, but the reader is directed to the Notes in the back. Note 83 tells where this information came from: an article in Special-In­terest Autos magazine for March-April, 1977, titled, "The Fishleigh Fords," by Lorin Sorensen.

Ford enthusiasts recognize Lorin Sorensen as a nationally acclaimed historian and the most prolific publisher of books about Ford products, but how many recall that he was the editor of this magazine over thirty years ago? It's true— Lorin edited the V-8 Times from 1968 through the first issue of 1971, which was his springboard into the world of Ford history and publishing. One of Lorin's most significant contributions to Ford histo­ry is his discovery of the work of designer Walter T. Fishleigh and how it influenced Edsel Ford. If you

The streamlined coupe

does not look like any

automobile ever built

by the Ford Motor

Company, but

what is it?

can find Lorin's 1977 SIA article, you will see it is il­lustrated with styling models that look very much like the one on the blackboard behind Edsel Ford in the Rivera portrait.

The sketch on the facing page was made from one of those photos in Sorensen's article. You will see that this car does not have some of the embossed paneling, nor the cowl vents, and the headlamps are

built into the catwalks rather than free-standing, as they ap­pear to be in the blackboard car, and the bumpers are double bars rather than single. But look at the similarities! It's practically identical but for the items just noted—same propor­tions, same rounded front end and the same swoopy rear fend­ers. Sorensen even went so far as to include the Edsel Ford portrait by Diego Rivera in his article, noting in the caption that Edsel was Fishleigh's men­tor, and the presence of this de­

sign in the portrait showed Edsel's interest in futur­istic auto design.

Using these photos of Fishleigh's styling model. all of which are Ford factory photos dated October 6, 1930, as guides, we can sketch in those parts oi' the car on Edsel's blackboard that are hidden by his head and shoulders. The result is what you see below.

Walt Fishleigh thus seems to be the man who first got Edsel Ford interested in streamlined designs, but you will not find out much about him in the books

'*:>C1.

••H • H H I

• The complete side view of the advanced design for the streamlined coupe that Edsel Ford w a s considering can be generated by copying the parts hidden by his head and shoulders in the Rivera

portrait after the drawing of the other coupe. 23

about Ford styling where you might expect it.

Sorensen's SIA article tells us that Fishleigh came

with Ford in 1919 after having taught auto engineer­

ing and design at the University of Michigan, and

having spent some time as an executive body engi­

neer at Packard. At Ford, Fishleigh was an assistant

to Joe Galamb, who was more or less chief body en­

gineer, although nobody had exact titles at Ford in

those days. W h e n the Model A was being developed,

Fishleigh was sent to every state in the union with

the designs for the lamps, braking system and the

unusual cowl-mounted fuel tank, in order to be sure

that these components would meet all state regula­

tions. Fishleigh was interested in streamlined de­

sign, transverse-mounted rear

engines and other revolutionary

ideas even then, but found prac­

tically no interest in such no­

tions at Ford—except for Edsel.

Thus, it was undoubtedly Edsel

who encouraged Fishleigh in

developing the ideas he had, at least as far as building the mod­

els seen in the photographs. A n article about the coming

demand for streamlined cars in

the January, 1933, issue of Ford

Dealer & Service Field maga­

zine is illustrated with a picture of another Fishleigh streamlin­

er, a sedan with a long wheelbase, also done during

his Ford years. This article identifies Fishleigh as

"formerly Chief Engineer of the Lincoln Division of the Ford Motor Company." That doesn't seem right.

If he had held a title like that, Fishleigh would be

mentioned more often in the Ford history books. O n

the other hand, he well may have had more impor­tance at Lincoln than has ever been acknowledged.

M e n who wrote for FD&SF magazine generally

knew what they were talking about. Lincoln, as w e know, was Edsel's domain, where his father seldom

meddled. It's easy to imagine how Fishleigh's ideas

might have caught Edsel's interest in that setting.

Whatever the case, Fishleigh quit Ford in late

1930 and opened his own engineering consulting

firm with his brother. The drawings and models of

his streamliners must have remained at Ford,

though, as two years later, when Diego Rivera de­

cided to paint Edsel's portrait, they must have been

on hand for him to refer to. Indeed, it seems likely

that Edsel showed the streamlined designs to Rivera,

for how else would Rivera have learned about them?

H e had never visited Detroit before; never met Edsel

Ford until the fall of 1932, yet even then, two years

after Fishleigh left the company, Edsel was still in­

terested in the streamlined de­

signs he left behind.

Other manufacturers

made their lower-priced

cars resemble their

more expensive

models

Oi ne of the most unusual

things about the Lin­

coln-Zephyr is how

very much different a car it was

from its parent, the big Model

K Lincoln—or the Ford V-8,

for that matter. Ever since Hen­

ry Ford's son, Edsel, had been

allowed to have a hand in di­

recting the design of Ford prod­

ucts, they had all been well pro­

portioned, handsome automo­

biles, but of fairly convention­

al, conservative style, reflecting Edsel's basic nature. The Zephyr, when it first hit the showrooms late in

1935, startled many viewers with its radical stream­

lining. It did not resemble the Lincoln K very much

at all. Indeed, for 1937, the big Lincoln was restyled

to resemble the Zephyr, by adopting the Zephyr

headlights that faired into the front fenders, and the

Ford V-8 adopted the Zephyr look, too, with a

sharply veed grille and faired-in headlights.

Other manufacturers of expensive automobiles

who were obliged to offer medium-priced cars dur-

For 1937, the Ford V-8 and Lincoln K (center and right) received styling facelifts that reflected in differing ways the groundbreaking design introduced by the 1936 Lincoln-Zephyr (left).

24

• Walter Fishleigh also turned out this design for a streamlined sedan while at Ford in 1930. In 1931, after he left Ford, this design created quite a stir in the automotive press, and it was still newsworthy in January, 1933, when this picture of it appeared in Ford Dealer & Service Field. In it,

you can see s o m e elements that appeared in the Lincoln-Zephyr some years later.

ing the Depression in order to retain market share

did not go about it the way Ford did. They made

their lower-priced cars resemble their more expen-

sive models. The Packard 120 introduced in 1935

and the Packard 6 brought out

in '37 looked very much like

the larger, more expensive

Packards. Cadillac's lower-

priced running mate, the

LaSalle, always bore a distinct

resemblance to its expensive cousins. Also, LaFayettes

looked like senior Nashes, and

Terraplanes looked like Hud-

sons. Thus, buyers could get a

It seems that Walter

Fishleigh had gotten

Edsel to thinking about

streamlined design

the benefits that would accrue from them as early as

1930, over five years before the Zephyr was intro­

duced. The bizarre streamlining of Tjaarda's car thus

did not shock Edsel Ford; he had been thinking

along such lines for a long time,

and it looks like we have Walter

fishleigh to thank for that.

And as tor Diego Rivera's inclusion of a fishleigh design

in his portrait of Edsel lord, it appears that the great artist.

who knew virtually nothing about the American auto indus-

tiy until he came to Detroit in

lc)32. was shrewd enough to

car that looked like the expensive one they wanted at pick up on this thread of automotive design history

a price they could afford. It made good business and work it into his portrait. By making the swoopy

sense during poor economic times. Fishleigh coupe seem to radiate from Edsel's head.

By rejecting that philosophy and presenting a Rivera shows him already thinking along such lines

dramatic streamliner as the running mate for the as early as 1932.

staid, conservative Lincoln, the Lincoln-Zephyr had Here is one last item upon which to speculate: in

to create its own market. That it was successful in his SIA article, Lorin Sorensen says Fishleigh left

doing so is a testament to its inherently good design, Ford late in 1930 over some disagreement with

but still, the questions remain: W h y did Edsel Ford Charlie Sorensen, the production boss at Ford. W e

embrace the radical teardrop-shaped car designed by know from reading the biographical notes on Eu-

John Tjaarda and presented to him by the Briggs gene T. Gregorie in Henry Dominguez's Edsel ton!

Manufacturing Company so readily, and why was he and E.T. Gregorie book that Gregorie was offered a

willing to gamble on that basic design as the model job with Ford shortly before New Year's Day, 1931,

for the lower-priced Lincoln? His conservative taste where he would work as a Lincoln bod) designer.

might have been expected to reject the very idea, but Could it be that the vacanc) created bj fishleigh's

he was enthusiastic about it. The answer to those departure was the one Idled In the young Bob Grc-

questions would seem to be that Walter Fishleigh gorie? If so, w e have one more reason to be thankful had gotten Edsel to thinking about such designs and to Waltei I Fishleigh. \>