First International Motorcycle Art Show: 1973

Art and motorcycles: today the words sit comfortably together, but in times past that pairing would be met with scoffs.  While motorcycles have been explored as a subject matter for over a century, it took many decades for motorcycles to be considered a suitable medium for an artist with a respected career, or for ‘motorcycle artists’ to be taken seriously.  It’s still a struggle, and I’ve had many conversation with ‘fine’ artists who fear being pigeonholed if they dig too deeply into their love of bikes.  And yet they carry on because they feel compelled, and not because it’s a good career move. Some artists, like the Futurists in the ‘Teens, respond to the energy and freedom of motorcycles – their kinetic potential and implications for mobility.  Other artists are passionate about riding, with an inner compulsion to explore motorcycles as their subject matter (e.g. Billy Al Bengston, Conrad Leach, et al.).  And some artists – collectively known as customizers – approach the motorcycle directly as their medium, modifying them to suit their vision, whether as art per se or as a functional sculpture (e.g. Ian Barry, Ron Finch, etc).

While the Guggenheim’s ‘The Art of the Motorcycle’ exhibit was groundbreaking, and significantly shifted the popular view of motorcycles by putting those words together in a respected institution, it was not the first museum exhibit to declare the possibility of motorcycles as works of art.  That credit appears to belong to the Phoenix Art Museum (PAM), and its Director Goldthwaite Higginson Dorr III, who curated the First International Motorcycle Art Show (FIMAS) in 1973.  This long-forgotten museum exhibit was amazingly innovative, and deserves recognition as the first of its kind to include motorcycles as more than just examples of contemporary industrial design, or worse, as objects undeserving of ‘high culture’ attention.  The aims of the exhibit were explicitly laid out by its curator: to show that motorcycles, especially customized motorcycles, deserved inclusion in the canon of Art.

From a PAM press release on July 18, 1973: “The motorcycle is a work of art,” Goldthwaite H Dorr III, director of the museum, commented on the upcoming show. “As an example of functional design, it has shown fascinating evolution.  Since World War II, cyclists have been tinkering with and modifying cycles — creating extreme designs in ‘choppers’ and ‘cafe racers’, for example. The use of chrome and paint and welding torch have made these developments possible,” he said.

The notion that motorcycles deserved inclusion in art museums was a radical proposition in 1973.  While motorcycle sales were booming at the time, and Honda led the charge to re-brand them as suitable for the ‘nicest people’, there was still tremendous animosity towards motorcyclists in popular culture – newspapers, television, books, and film.  Only three years after the release of ‘Easy Rider’, riders still lurked in dark corners of the imagination as outlaws and outsiders at best, and drugged-up rapists and murderers at worst.  How brave, then, to present an exhibition of motorcycles and related artwork in an art museum, not as cultural novelties, but as cutting-edge aesthetic expressions worthy of an exhibition.

Pop-culture references of motorcycles shifted radically over the course of the 20th Century.  Their dynamism, modernity, and personal freedom were first celebrated artistically by the Futurists, starting in 1909 (see our article on Futurist representation of motorcycles here).  After World War 2, American culture in particular developed a fear of riders’ independence, coupled with an uneasy feeling of menace.  Those feelings were exploited by Jean Cocteau in his 1949 masterpiece ‘Orphée’, where a pair of motorcyclists served as Death’s henchmen (see our article on the origins of the Dark Rider trope here). Aprés Cocteau, le déluge: the mis-representation of events at the 1948 Hollister Rally by Life magazine, its subsequent magnification in the short story ‘Cyclists’ Raid’ in Harpers Magazine (by Frank Rooney, 1951), and the film developed from that story, ‘The Wild One‘ (1953), launched a full-blown culture war against motorcyclists.  In popular media, that war has lasted for decades, and still echoes today in Sons of Anarchy, The Bikeriders movie, etc. The public is fascinated by depravity, and this is our mirror in popular media: the cut-off wearing 1%er thug. Women riders remain mostly invisible, unless they’re double-D-cup warriors (e.g., Barb Wire, and Russ Meyer’s Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!).

Despite all this cultural baggage, GH Dorr III gathered an extraordinary collection to Phoenix:  painters, sculptors, photographers, custom builders, and vintage bike collectors. Open for less than one month, from August 8 – September 2 1973, the FIMAS included vintage, antique, and customized motorcycles, as well as drawings, paintings, and sculpture with the theme of motorcycling. Painters included Phyllis Krim, who was known for her depictions of classic vehicle in the NYC art scene of the 1960s/70s.  Sculptors included Luis Jiménez, whose 7′ tall fiberglass motorcyclist had as much presence as the real deal.  Photographers included Danny Lyon. Customizers included several legends: Kenny ‘Von Dutch’ Howard, Ron Finch, and Ed ‘Big Daddy’ Roth.  It was one hell of a show.

Goldthwaite H Dorr III

Clearly a man of vision, Mr Dorr had previously been an Assistant Curator at The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, a curator at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art,  and was President of the Board of Trustees for the Shemer Art Center in Phoenix.  ‘GH’, as he preferred to be called, came from a distinguished family line, as his grandfather Goldthwaite Higgison Dorr was a famous New York lawyer appointed to important Federal positions, and was something of a mentor to Richard Nixon at his law firm.  If you’re a fan of the Coen brothers movie The Ladykillers, Tom Hanks plays ‘Professor’ Goldthwaite Higginson Dorr, who is visually modeled after the original G H Dorr’s famous goatee, which earned him a front page photo in Istanbul while an attaché in Turkey, as he ‘looked like Mark Twain.’ He’s even captured in Richard Nixon’s infamous ‘White House Tapes’ on August 18 1972, in which Nixon suggests G H spend his next birthday at the White House.

GH was not his grandfather, though, and images from the exhibition suggest he was a positive and curious soul, about whom his friends and family cared deeply.  They were enthusiastic about my interest in this long-ago exhibit, and I am immensely grateful to them for forwarding my questions to GH, despite his being in hospice and quite unwell by the time I finally tracked him down this Spring.  The following are my questions to GH Dorr III, and his responses.

What was the inspiration for the First International Motorcycle Art Show?

GH: As a boy in New York City and overseas just after WWII, motorcycles always caught my attention, and always ‘turned peoples heads.’ Years later, as Director of the Phoenix Art Museum in 1973, the motorcycle movie Easy Rider had become a cultural phenomenon inspiring freedom in style and motion.  I thought it would be a novel and powerful idea to tap into that movement and bring that free-wheeling spirit of motorcycles-as-art to the people of Phoenix.  And I believed it would further broaden the Phoenix Art Museum’s appeal to the wider community in Arizona and beyond.

How was the idea of ‘motorcycles as art’ viewed at the time?

GH: Especially so soon after some of the turmoil of the 1960s and early 1970s, the idea of bringing motorcycles in as art was viewed at the time as a bold experiment to say the least.  It certainly pushed traditional boundaries beyond the usual art forms of paintings, photography, and sculpture.  While the museum’s board of trustees approved the exhibit, some trustees were more receptive than others, and the ‘jury was still out.’  Nevertheless, I believed the exhibit would be a hit, bringing both art and motion to life. 

How were you able to gather all those different motorcycles?

GH: That was the secret sauce of this exhibit – sourcing the best motorcycles of all kinds, all vintages, all styles – and shipping them to the museum in time to prepare for the opening.  Once we got the word out that we were putting on this exhibit, motorcycle collectors and aficionados came from all over, offering their bikes to participate in this pioneering event.  When all was said and done – we had collected the finest and most diverse group of motorcycles ever.  We had vintage Indians with bicycle seats, a Cyclone with bicycle tires, classic Enfields, WWII military side cars, BMWs, Harleys, and modern ‘Choppers’ of the 1970’s with their high handlebars, chrome, and customized artistic gas tanks.  Those fashionable choppers of the time were popularized by movies like Easy Rider, so were right on trend for the times.  One chopper even had a stunningly painted gas tank by the famous 1960s/1970s artist Peter Max. 

How was the exhibition received?

GH: With all this horsepower in the museum, it was an absolute hit!  Current members and patrons were joined by many new visitors, as young and old came from near and far to experience this unique gathering of motorcycles as art.  It was thrilling to see so many coming to the Phoenix Art Museum and enjoying this event.  The exhibit stretched the bounds of interaction with art, engagement with art.  Looking back, it was amusing that the interest was so high that we even had to add signs and continuous security asking people not to touch or sit on the bikes! 

What was the legacy of the exhibit?

GH: In the end this exhibit was a truly unique, pioneering experiment — ahead of its time in bringing exciting art to people and more people to art.  Twenty five years later in 1998, it was exciting and gratifying to see that the Guggenheim Museum in New York held a similar and very popular “The Art of the Motorcycle” exhibit.  We also had fun in the 1970s bringing the “Space Art Exhibit” to the Phoenix Art Museum and community (moonrocks, astronauts, and Bob and Louise McCall)!

The First International Motorcycle Art Show is no longer forgotten, and can now be acknowledged as a pioneering and visionary effort on the part of GH Dorr III and the Phoenix Art Museum.  Many of the painters, sculptors, and photographers in the exhibit became important figures in the art world, and of course several of the motorcycle builders were already famous in 1973, and are today considered icons of the ‘custom culture’ movement. GH Dorr III clearly had his finger on the pulse of a movement that had yet to be named, twenty years before the Art of the Motorcycle exhibit changed everything about motorcycles, forever.

Many thanks to Shonna James, President of the Shemer Art Center, for connecting me to GH Dorr’s family, and to the staff of the Phoenix Art Museum, especially Aspen Reynolds (archivist for PAM) who dug back 50 years for the material used in this article.  All of us at The Vintagent thank GH Dorr’s family for their support and assistance in making the interview possible.  Godspeed, GH!