A fabulous image of Joseph Christiaens (1882-1919) on a bank at the Brooklands racetrack. It celebrates his world speed record for 50 miles set on 15 November 1912 at the track. He is driving a 6-cylinder 100 hp. Excelsior car. The son of a wealthy family in Brussels, Joseph Christiaens became a proficient driver and pilot. Brooklands itself was built in 1907, it was the world’s first purpose-built racing circuit with banks.The artist signing as ‘Gamy’ is an anagram of Magy, whose full name was Marguerite Millet (1883-1949) wife of Ernest Montaut (1878-1909), both accomplished artists. He is one of the most famous of the early illustrators of motor sports. He was born in Montauban, north of Toulouse, into an era in France where the motor car was beginning to catch the public imagination. Until Montaut, there had been no artist of motor racing. The cars had developed into large machines with big engines and were now being raced town to town on roads rutted by horse and cart. The thrill of these roaring down the road was captured best by Montaut, who began in 1897 to chronicle these races in art. He drew upon the poster art of the period produced by the likes of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) and Jules Cheret (1836-1932). ‘His lighting can be Impressionist, his trees, swaying to the passage of a car, take on Symbolist curves. He is not afraid to colour like a Fauve’ (Tubbs). He is credited with inventing two artistic methods to illustrate speed amongst others. The use of speed lines to indicate movement, the bending of the foreground of the car all help to project the feeling of speed and power. It was however Diego Velasquez who first blurred spinning wheels in a painting entitled ‘The Spinners’ from 1657! He drew directly on stone from which each print was made. Then followed the extensive hand coloured process using several stencils elaborately cut for each image, one for each colour. This is a process known as pochoir, a forerunner of the modern silk-screening process. As demand grew, he took on more staff eventually employing about a dozen to do the colouring alone. The motor car industry was booming, and his posters were used to decorate showrooms to encourage sales. Note the reference here to a Bosch magneto, Claudel carburettor, and Arecal GA radiator. He was not only known for motor cars, but his posters depicted other motorised machines, especially aeroplanes, another recent invention, along with dirigibles and motorboats. His earliest posters date from the late 1890s but the glory period is the early 1900s leading up to his tragic death in 1909 from appendicitis. His wife continued the business. Automobile Quarterly (Summer 1962) ‘Montaut & Atelier’ pp. 196-213; Clendinin, Dorothy (1976) ‘Lively Legacy. The first automotive prints for the first automotive enthusiasts’ in ‘Road & Track’ pp. 70-73; Helck, Peter (1977) ‘Car Classics’; ‘Collection de L’Atelier Montaut-Mabileau’ (1992) Musee de La Colline de L’Automobile; Tubbs, Douglas B. (1978) ‘Art and the Automobile’.