Motoring art
Paris-born Bugatti stylist uses Victorian photography for a new fine art series of speedometer studies
As one of the few Frenchmen working at Bugatti, Etienne Salomé has a refreshing outlook on design and fine art. Be it memories of watching high-speed Le Mans action with his father at night on the Mulsanne, or enthusing about Robert Delaunay – his favourite artist – Salomé’s influences and creative output are amazingly diverse.
During the past year, this respected designer had been inspired by Chronophotography, the early technique primarily used to capture movement with multiple exposures. The most famous exponents included Antoine Claudet and Eadweard Muybridge.
Enthused by the unique style of early daguerreotypes, Salomé set about capturing the development of the Bugatti speedometer within a single artwork. After selecting 35 different gauge designs – most of them by Jaeger, which featured on various dashboards including Type 35 and Atalante – Salomé superimposed them with dramatic results. The final work, when printed on a 2m2 canvas, has a dramatic presence: “The source material is my own photography, which is then developed into a semi-abstract form but with traces of the original images,” says Salomé. “I love the way that they can all be looked at in one moment.”
Inspired by the Bugatti artwork, Salomé then turned to other famous manufacturers for reference, with Lamborghini, Ferrari, Porsche, Maserati, Alfa Romeo, Rolls-royce and Bentley all featuring in a dramatic limited-edition print series that made its debut at Rétromobile in 2018.
Born in Paris in 1980, Salomé first studied industrial design at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs before completing a master’s degree in 2005 at the Royal College of Art, where his lecturers included Peter Stevens.
Following positions at Kia, Mazda and Renault, Salomé joined Bugatti, where he rose to Director of Interior Design and Assistant Chief Designer. During the past decade his special projects have included working with Hermes on the limited-edition Veyron FBG, together with the Super Sport and the 16C Galibier interiors.
Always looking for fresh creative outlets, Salomé first moved into the art world with a collection of Bugatti-inspired sculptures and prints that were first displayed at Arts au Château in Molsheim in 2013. From 2016 Salomé focused on the Type 57SC Atlantic as reference, and the resulting aluminium pieces have been presented at Bugatti showrooms around the world. For his debut exhibition at Rétromobile in 2017, Salomé’s display featured a series of huge etchings inspired by pre-war Bugatti design and racing history that were the talk of the show.
Never one to settle, Salomé is now looking at Japanese calligraphy for inspiration with a series of Porsche sculptures. MW
For more details, see www.salome-e.com or e-mail mail@salome-e.com