Motoring Art Website

The art of uk motoring artists

Fissi Ferdinand

Year working: 1872 - 1954

Seems to have been a very busy Artist for The Car – Illustrated with a range of works in the period around 1912. These include paintings, illustrations, cartoons and technical drawings. The ‘ss’ in the signature sometimes have long tails that can look like ‘gg’, as can be seen in the art entitled ‘The Growth’. Besides the script signature there is a uppercase FISSI and the smaller drawings like the technical drawings are just initialled FF. In 1909 he produced 20 illustrations for a book about Beaulieu Abbey. Whether this resulted from a motoring connection with second Baron Montagu of Beaulieu is not known/ Fissi emigrated to the USA in 1924 and would have seemed to have moved into the cartoon/movie picture industry. For fuller details see below.

Page from The Car Illustrated issue 11 December 1912 Image courtesy of Malcolm Jeal

Car of the future 1961! From The Car Illustrated Image courtesy of Malcolm Jeal

Radiator Shapes initialled FF Image courtesy of Malcolm Jeal

Carburettor cutaway initialled FF Image courtesy of Malcolm Jeal