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Ferrari by Mailander 

by Karl Ludvigsen

By producing this seemingly cost-no-object book, Dalton Watson Fine Books has gone out on a literary limb for Ferrari enthusiasts and is betting that their target audience is astute enough to appreciate great photography, outstanding layout, superb photo selection and willing enough to chuck out $125 for the privilege of ownership. There are few better deals out there. Think of the book as a multiple picture frame that presents art, history, and an era never to return—a portable fine art museum of early Ferrari history. It is books like this that demonstrate why the Internet won’t replace them anytime soon.

This is an important book, and one of the best from the Ludvigsen Library. Rodolfo Mailander’s epic photo collection covers only the years 1950–1955 but these are the years that forged Ferrari’s name and reputation, and any new work involving that formative era is heartily welcome.

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The Art of the Engineer
by Ken Baynes and Francis Pugh

Nothing as powerful as a revolution happens without a plan. A “plan” in the most literal sense is what made the Industrial Revolution possible. Plan in the context of this book refers to the scientific and technical illustrations that precede the actual building of things. Rooted in the Renaissance and refined in the architectural and naval draftsmanship of the 16th and 17th centuries, the engineering drawing reached new heights of accuracy, both in terms of meaning as well as in execution, during the Industrial Revolution.

Sadly, many, if not most, of the architects of such plans have been lost to anonymity and obscurity. Only late in the 20th century have there been attempts to rediscover the work of our industrial and pre-industrial forebears and examine not only the impact of their work but how they actually went about their work. Precious few volumes have been devoted to the subject of the engineering drawing and it seems that nothing on the scope or scale of this book existed prior to the 1978–79 landmark exhibition by the Welsh Arts Council of working drawings. Indeed it was that exhibition that provided the impetus for this book, rich with expertly photographed drawings from the 13th century to the present.

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Art of the Formula 1 Race Car
by Stuart Codling (Author) & James Mann (Photographer)

Racecars have a purpose and that purpose is speed not beauty. But beauty is not the subject of this book, art is. Bandying these terms about sounds almost flippant but there are serious distinctions and they merit deep thought. While this book is dripping with mouth-watering photos the text is no less compelling in the “form over function” debate.

In most books, the Foreword is an utterly banal exercise of having a marquee name wax more or less eloquently about something more or less (usually less) related to what the book is about. Not so here. Peter Windsor—who at the time he wrote it was still on track to field his own US F1 team, now aborted, for the 2010 season—does himself proud with an insightful commentary that goes right to the heart of the matter: “If [F1 cars] happen to look pretty then surely that is serendipity.”

Written by an F1 photojournalist and motorsports veteran, the book portrays 18 Grand Prix cars from nearly 60 years of Formula 1 history in text and photos. And what photos they are!

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Box Top Air Power:
The Aviation Art of Model Airplane Boxes
by Thomas Graham

This softcover book presents about 170 examples of [a] “exemplary works” (in other words not everything under the sun) that [b] the author deems “artistically superior” (read: other people may have made other choices) of [c] predominantly US model kit makers (for European/Japanese kits look elsewhere). Also, the author favored old-style techniques over airbrushed or computer-generated art. By stating his premises right upfront the author is obviously mindful of the fact that a book about a subject with which readers are likely to have personally interacted will elicit subjective and possibly irrational reactions regarding inclusion/omissions. Moreover, a reader who is now an adult will have bought these kits as a child and formed preferences, opinions, attachments at a time when one’s reflective faculties were different than now. In other words, no matter which way an author goes about his selection, the outcome will be rife with controversy. Everybody on the same page now?

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Celebration of Flight: The Aviation Art of Roy Cross
by Roy Cross with Arthur Ward

Since retiring from his freelance job as chief box-top designer for Airfix plastic kits, British artist/illustrator and writer Roy Cross has made a big splash, especially in the US, as a marine artist whose fine-art oils easily command $50,000 nowadays. But his first love was aviation art and this book shows a sampling of it. The work is introduced by Arthur Ward who, while Chief Executive of the London design studio Big Design, had written the 50th anniversary commemorative book on Airfix kits (Airfix: Celebrating 50 Years of the World’s Greatest Plastic Kits). As a boy he was not alone in being drawn to Airfix kits specifically because of their striking box-top artwork. In later years he learned that this was Cross’s work but it wasn’t until he wrote his book that he was introduced to Cross. This, in turn, would lead to Cross inviting Ward to collaborate on the present book. But enough about Airfix. What Ward discovered in working on this book, and what you will discover reading it, is that Cross did a whole lot more than box tops.

Ward devotes some 20 pages to exploring Cross’s development and influences on his work. Cross was born in 1924 and the 1930s produced many things that captured a young boy’s imagination: the giant Zeppelin airships, English aviatrix Amy Johnson and her husband Jim Mollison setting numerous long-distance records, or American Charles Lindbergh’s solo Atlantic crossing in 1927.

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