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Hupmobile Advertising Art by Bernard Boutet de Monvel (1929)

Hupmobile Advertising Art by Bernard Boutet de Monvel (January, 1929): Who Made It The Mode? Evening Wrap by Molyneux... Car by Hupmobile
Hupmobile Advertising Art by Bernard Boutet de Monvel (January, 1929): Who Made It The Mode? Evening Wrap by Molyneux... Car by Hupmobile
Hupmobile Advertising Art by Bernard Boutet de Monvel (February-March, 1929): Creators of the Mode - Evening Ensemble by Jenny... Car by Hupmobile
Hupmobile Advertising Art by Bernard Boutet de Monvel (February-March, 1929): Creators of the Mode - Evening Ensemble by Jenny... Car by Hupmobile
Hupmobile Advertising Art by Bernard Boutet de Monvel (February-March, 1929): Creators of the Mode - Evening Ensemble by Jenny... Car by Hupmobile
Hupmobile Advertising Art by Bernard Boutet de Monvel (February-March, 1929): Creators of the Mode - Evening Ensemble by Jenny... Car by Hupmobile
Hupmobile Advertising Art by Bernard Boutet de Monvel (March-April, 1929): Creators of the Mode - Afternoon Tailleur by Premet... Car by Hupmobile
Hupmobile Advertising Art by Bernard Boutet de Monvel (March-April, 1929): Creators of the Mode - Afternoon Tailleur by Premet... Car by Hupmobile
Hupmobile Advertising Art by Bernard Boutet de Monvel (March, 1929): Creators of the Mode - Afternoon Tailleur by Premet... Car by Hupmobile
Hupmobile Advertising Art by Bernard Boutet de Monvel (March, 1929): Creators of the Mode - Afternoon Tailleur by Premet... Car by Hupmobile
Hupmobile Advertising Art by Bernard Boutet de Monvel (April, 1929): Creators of the Mode - Sports Ensemble by Régny... Car by Hupmobile
Hupmobile Advertising Art by Bernard Boutet de Monvel (April, 1929): Creators of the Mode - Sports Ensemble by Régny... Car by Hupmobile
Hupmobile Advertising Art by Bernard Boutet de Monvel (April, 1929): Creators of the Mode - Sports Ensemble by Régny... Car by Hupmobile
Hupmobile Advertising Art by Bernard Boutet de Monvel (April, 1929): Creators of the Mode - Sports Ensemble by Régny... Car by Hupmobile
Hupmobile Advertising Art by Bernard Boutet de Monvel (May, 1929): Creators of the Mode - Her Frock by Worth... Her Car by Hupmobile
Hupmobile Advertising Art by Bernard Boutet de Monvel (May, 1929): Creators of the Mode - Her Frock by Worth... Her Car by Hupmobile
Hupmobile Advertising Art by Bernard Boutet de Monvel (May, 1929): Creators of the Mode - Her Frock by Worth... Her Car by Hupmobile
Hupmobile Advertising Art by Bernard Boutet de Monvel (May, 1929): Creators of the Mode - Her Frock by Worth... Her Car by Hupmobile
Hupmobile Advertising Art by Bernard Boutet de Monvel (June, 1929): Tailleur by Lanvin
Hupmobile Advertising Art by Bernard Boutet de Monvel (June, 1929): Tailleur by Lanvin
Hupmobile Advertising Art by Bernard Boutet de Monvel (June, 1929): Tailleur by Lanvin... Car by Hupmobile
Hupmobile Advertising Art by Bernard Boutet de Monvel (June, 1929): Tailleur by Lanvin... Car by Hupmobile
Hupmobile Advertising Art by Bernard Boutet de Monvel (June-July, 1929): Beach Costume by Lenief - Car... by Hupmobile
Hupmobile Advertising Art by Bernard Boutet de Monvel (June-July, 1929): Beach Costume by Lenief - Car... by Hupmobile
Hupmobile Advertising Art by Bernard Boutet de Monvel (June, 1929): Beach Costume by Lenief - Car... by Hupmobile
Hupmobile Advertising Art by Bernard Boutet de Monvel (June, 1929): Beach Costume by Lenief - Car... by Hupmobile
Images: oldcaradvertising.com; aldenjewell's photostream
Rating:  5    -0    +5
Tuesday 13 November 1928.

Having weathered an appalling storm, Bernard Boutet de Monvel, who was traversing the Atlantic aboard the S.S. Ile-de-France, made landfall in New York for the third time.

A few months previously, Hugh Mitchell, director of the Hupmobile and Mitchell Body Corporation, requested that the painter – for promotional purposes – do a special drawing of a car whose chassis was to be made by his firm. This 8-cyclinder motor car with its 3,348-metre wheelbase chassis, which Bernard Boutet de Monvel had a body fitted to in France by Kellner, and which, at the end of his agreement with Hugh Mitchell was to be given to him, was about to be completed.

Hupmobile Motor Car, a firm in Detroit (Michigan), which was created in 1909 by Robert Craig Hupp (1877-1931) and later merged with the Mitchell Motor Car Company (Wisconsin) to create the Hupmobile and Mitchell Body Corporation was, that year, at the height of its boom with over 65,000 cars sold.

Bernard Boutet de Monvel arrived at his hotel, The Wyndham, on 42 West 58th Street, to learn that the directors of the Cadillac firm, which belonged to General Motors, wished to commission an unlimited number of promotional drawings at $2,000 a piece, an astronomical amount for the time. Indeed Alfred P. Sloan (1875 - 1966), the enterprising Director of General Motors, had just enlisted a young Californian designer, Harley J. Earl (1893 - 1966) and entrusted him with the creation of the first car design studio, the "Art and Colour Section". The brand new La Salle (a sub-brand of Cadillac) and the new Cadillac, which drew great inspiration from it, were immediate successes. As such, all that Alfred P. Sloan was lacking was the genius of Bernard Boutet de Monvel, the artist adulated by New York, to create promotional drawings for his new creations at no matter what cost. As a result, he didn't think twice about sending emissaries to him in Paris and New York, to tell him all about it...

Bernard Boutet de Monvel, who immediately opened up to Hugh Mitchell about the proposal made to him by his competitor, received a visit from his associate an hour later, who straightaway commissioned twelve promotional drawings from him, for the sum of $24,000, which equated to the unit price set by Cadillac.

Bernard Boutet de Monvel very quickly got down to work and had all the models presented to him from the New Century Six and New Century Eight Hupmobile range (Roadster, Sedan, Coupe, Victoria...), a new range now designed for both Him and Her. In this way, the car firm made itself into a creator of the mode, in the same was as the fashionable couturiers: "Manteau du soir par Molyneux" (Evening wrap by Molyneux), "Ensemble de sport par Régny" (Sports' ensemble by Régny), "Ensemble du soir par Jenny" (Evening ensemble by Jenny), "Tailleur d'après-midi par Prémet" (Afternoon suit by Prémet), "Costume de plage par Lenief" (Beach suit by Lenief), "Robe par Worth" (Her Frock by Worth)... and always an "Automobile par Hupmobile" (Car by Hupmobile)!


The Hupmobile was an automobile built from 1909 through 1940 by the Hupp Motor Company of Detroit, Michigan, which was located at 345 Bellevue Avenue. Their first car, the Model 20, was introduced to the public at the Detroit Auto Show in February 1909. The company initially produced 500 vehicles. Robert Craig Hupp, a former employee of Oldsmobile and Ford founded the company with his brother Louis in 1908. Production began in 1909. In 1910, production increased by more than 5000. Following disagreements with his financial backers Hupp sold his stock in the Hupp Motor Car Company and established the short-lived RCH Automobile Company, later the Hupp-Yates Electric Car Company. Hupp Motor Company, however, continued to grow after its founder had left. A new plant was purchased in 1924 as Hupp competed strongly against Ford and Chevrolet and by 1928 sales had reached over 65,000 units. To increase production and handle the growth in sales, Hupp purchased the Chandler-Cleveland Motors Corporation (Chandler Motor Car) for its manufacturing facilities. Hupp advertising began to take cues from the romantic Ned Jordan style of automotive prose. A 1930 Hupmobile advertisement read:

"A Hupmobile becomes a little more than just a car. He'll lift the hood as a veteran would, and show Hupp's mechanical fineness. He knows! He's driven Hupmobile since the old outdated out-of-context but still-revered early Hupmobiles with the tall steel spout on its radiator. There's something about Hupp's faithfulness that gets to a man. A feeling that hasn't a name. But it's the same as the feeling a seaman gets for his ship, an engineer for his engine, or a woman for her home. He's got as much use for an adjective as a cowboy for a powder puff. He's rough on claims. Promises of what a car can do. He's the old-time Hupmobile owner. He's seen cars come, seen 'em go. Only he won't talk. He'll act! Give you fact after fact, not in words but in deeds, in bullet speeds and 'Big Bertha' power."

Sales and production began to fall even before the onset of the depression in 1930. A strategy to make the Hupmobile a larger, more expensive car began with the 1925 introduction of an 8-cylinder model, followed by the discontinuance of the traditional 4-cylinder Hupmobile. While aiming for a seemingly more lucrative market segment, Hupp essentially turned its back on its established clinetele. Nevertheless, in a constant effort to remain competitive, Hupp introduced a number of new features. They were one of the very first automakers to equip their cars with "free wheeling", a device that enjoyed immense, but brief, popularity in the early 1930s. Unfortunately, the company made the same mistake that many other medium-priced carmakers were making at the same time. Namely, in an attempt to capture every possible sale, they offered many different models. With Hupmobile's relatively low production volume, the result was that no model could be produced in sufficient quantity to keep manufacturing costs low enough to provide an operating profit. Hupp abandoned its more conservatively styled product line and turned to industrial designer Raymond Loewy to design its 1932 Hupp cyclefender, a flashy roadster which did well at the track, but sales continued to decline. 1934 saw the introduction of a striking restyle called the "Aerodynamic" by Loewy, as well as the lower-priced series 417-W using Murray-built slightly-modified Ford bodies.
Source: www.stephane-jacques-addade.com
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