The debate about what is considered art — and what is not considered art — has filled volumes, spawned entire branches of philosophy and has been the subject of more late-night drunken arguments than anyone can recall. It gets even murkier when delving into the world of technical drawing. Is a blueprint or schematic a piece of art? Should I be in awe of the wiring diagram in the back of my Clymer manual when I am trying to diagnose why one of my spark plugs isn’t firing? Yet there have been individuals throughout history whose ability to convey technical information transcends the utilitarian into the world of fine art.
David Kimble is one such modern master, perhaps the last of his kind creating highly detailed cutaway illustrations by hand with acetate, airbrush, paint, and time. For the last 50 years he has drawn everything from water valves to ocean liners to the official illustrations of the Starship Enterprise for the first Star Trek film. To look at his art is to suddenly gain a superpower. Not just x-ray vision that allows us to peel back the surface and peer at what lies beneath, but also the power of heightened intelligence, where the perfect order of fine-engineered machines reveal themselves naked.
Kimble’s artistry cannot be divorced from his childhood, as though he arrived fully formed, preordained to do what he is so well known for today. He grew up in southern California in the heart of racing culture. He says some of his earliest memories were walking to the L.A. Coliseum to watch midget car races. “I can remember the excitement of walking toward the building and hearing the four-cylinder Offenhauser engines and their melodious sound.”
Kimble would spend time as a young child in the workshop of family friend and legendary Indy car builder Frank Kurtis. These high-performance machines were built right in front of him, and he would sketch the cars as they were assembled. This was the genesis of his life’s work.
As a teenager, he studied art and design at the Art Space and Chouinard schools and went on to study physics in college. After getting out of school he put his engineering skills to use working on a range of jobs on a project-by-project basis so that when the opportunity arose he could drop everything to work on projects involving his first love — racing.
Between jobs, he built and raced his own cars, keeping the hobby secret from his mother, who would have been terrified had she known. He raced on the track and on the street, racking up scores of speeding tickets on L.A.’s thoroughfares. He graduated from cars to motorcycles in his 30s, which he says is the reverse of what most racers do, and he could still be found racing his Yamaha FZR400 on the Willow Springs track at the age of 47.
Kimble was working engineering jobs and doing cutaway illustrations on the side, but eventually, he made the jump to full-time art in 1976. Though he had a formal studio art education, Kimble says that he eschewed the giants of American painting, like Pollock and Rothko, and instead looked to the Baroque masters such as Rubens and Caravaggio for inspiration.
“The thing that speaks to me is literal,” he says. “The illustrations in my mind are two-dimensional models. They may be only lines and paint, but to me, I see them as being real. When I illustrate a car that I care about, I feel like I own a piece of it.
Kimble blends a deep understanding of engineering with a keen appreciation of aesthetic beauty. More than just a schematic, his art is meant to bring the viewer a deeper appreciation for, and understanding of, every aspect of his subject. His own definition of his art is a simple one: “It’s technical fine art,” says Kimble. “What is art but intent? And what is fine art but intent?”
That intent includes an intimate understanding of his subject. Working from photographs and conversations with the project’s engineers, he comes to know the subject inside and out, even reverse-engineering systems when he doesn’t understand them. He says that knowing and understanding what is being illustrated, and thinking about it as more than just shapes, allows him to prioritize and emphasize what is most important. “If you’re interested in the subject and have empathy with the subject and you look at my illustration, you can see what is important about it, and how things work, as well as it being a beautiful piece of art.
It is only after months of research that Kimble sets pencil to paper. He estimates that it may take four to five hundred hours to complete an illustration, typically starting work at 9 a.m. and working sometimes until midnight. Though the use of technology allows modern artists to create illustrations in a fraction of the time and effort that goes into his own work, Kimble believes that the intermediary of the computer leaves the work lacking, explaining that seeing art rendered by the artist’s hands is akin to hearing music played live.
“There is an element there, an element of imperfection, that makes us human, that [people] are going to miss out on,” he says. “Everything will be perfect, but it will be shallow. And if it’s shallow they won’t notice.”
He compares making his art to a motorcycle racer speeding at 170 miles per hour. At some point, the motorcycle disappears and you are just flying above the road. It is this kind of expression that he attempts to capture in his work. “It’s feeling emotion and expression through the machine; you step back from the machine and those same feelings are conveyed in my artwork, and I can feel it when I do it.”
We are all living through what the 20th-century economist Joseph Schumpeter could describe as a period of creative destruction. The ground shifts and we struggle to gain footing. Kimble believes that he will outlive his ability to practice his craft the way he wants. With the development of digital tools for technical artists, the labor-intensive work that Kimble performs has become increasingly hard to do. The entire infrastructure that has supported his work has all but evaporated, making his art more difficult and expensive to replicate. “When I can no longer do it using the method that I have developed over the last 50 years, then I will walk away from it.”
With the little time that he says he has left, Kimble wants to illustrate the great cars of the past. Still enraptured by the awe he felt as a child, he is especially interested in finding the 1911 Fiat S76 that he saw as a kid at a Disneyland Nickelodeon. He can recall it with pristine clarity.
There can never be a definitive answer to the question, “What is art?” But that doesn’t mean we should stop asking. One thing is certain: When looking at David Kimble’s work, you don’t have to be a car person, a bike person, or an engineer to appreciate his artistry. You only have to appreciate beauty and craft — and have a willingness to look beyond what is visible into what lies beneath.
This article first appeared in issue 024 of Iron & Air Magazine, and is reproduced here under license.
Words by Ian J.D. Logan | Illustrations by David Kimble | Images by Esther Havens
*Since the original publication of this piece by Iron & Air, David Kimble passed away in Texas at 80 years of age. His legacy lives on through his works.*
