DAY IN THE LIFE

The owner of the Historic Car Art gallery left behind a career as a pharmacist to indulge his passion

Historic Car Art Gallery owner Rupert Whyte

I’VE JUST ABOUT recovered from the

Art of Motoring exhibition, which I co-curate every year with Andrew Marriott as part of London Motor Week. It’s a big undertaking, but well worth the effort. The show has grown to the point that it was moved to the Mall Galleries this year.

It would be nice to think that I’ve played some small part in encouraging interest in motoring art in the UK. Since I set up shop in 2004, I’ve worked hard to demonstrate to people that a picture of a car can be more than ‘just a picture of a car’, and I spend a great deal of my time looking for exciting new artists – people whose work offers some fresh way of looking at things with four wheels and an engine.

Sometimes that involves travelling, in particular to Europe, where I’d say people have historically been slightly more open to the idea of motoring as a subject worthy of ‘serious’ artists. My gallery, which is based in rural Derbyshire, is approached by artists pretty frequently, too, but to be honest 95% of the stuff we’re shown doesn’t make the grade.

I run the business with a small team that includes my wife Kerry and my sister Lucy, and generally get cracking around 8am each morning, subject to the demands of my two children and the dog, and depending on whether I’ve snuck in a run or a bike ride. It’s good bicycling country, Derbyshire, with the Cannock Chase trails not far from home.

I’m still the first point of contact for all our artists and customers, and these days it seems that there are only ever busy periods and even busier ones – but you won’t catch me complaining. Before I started Historic Car Art I worked as a pharmacist. It was a good job but I’m acutely aware of how lucky I am to have managed to turn my interests into a career.

Unsurprisingly the passion for cars came first: my dad and my uncle would take me to Donington after it reopened in the late 1970s, and as soon as I finished university and started earning, I bought a Caterham and went racing. The Caterham was eventually replaced by a Lotus Eleven (a brilliant car), and the Eleven in turn by a 23B (less brilliant), but I hung up my boots when the kids came along.

By then I’d accumulated a collection of art and motor sport memorabilia – mainly old posters – and had started producing my own mixed-media pieces. In 2004 I displayed some of my work at a show and got chatting to the great painter John Ketchell. It transpired that his publisher had just gone out of business so I offered my services, such as they were at that stage, and John became Historic Car Art’s very first artist.

My enthusiasm for vintage posters has never waned, and I love sniffing out the good stuff for the gallery. That’s become a much harder task, though: the days of picking up perfect examples for pennies are long gone. You also have to be very careful not to be taken in by later reprints, some of which date from only a few years after the originals.

Over in France recently I acquired not one but two 1951 Le Mans posters, of which there are only a handful in the world. A tip from a friend led me to a house where they were sitting, unloved, in clip frames. One was in good shape; the other was tatty, but was snapped up by a buyer who loved it exactly as it was and didn’t want it restored. I was pleased about that. Some posters should be allowed to wear their history.

My own collection has shrunk over the years. I try to knock off at 6pm, and when I get home in the evening the only evidence of my obsession is a single Le Mans poster and a single Porsche 917 factory poster. Oh, there’s a big painting of a Lotus Eleven by John Ketchell, too; as it was commissioned for me by my family, I think its place on the wall is probably safe!

‘INTERESTING VINTAGE POSTERS ARE HARD TO COME BY NOW, BUT I LOVE SNIFFING OUT THE GOOD STUFF’