Remembering Liz and Ken Eberts

Among the 1965 class graduating from Art Center were Ken Eberts and Dave Mcintosh and who had also been roommates. Following graduation each went east; Ken to Dearborn as he’d been hired by Ford Styling and Dave to work in Detroit for ad agency J Walter Thompson. It wasn’t long before the two would once again move west; Ken having accepted a position with Lockheed working on interior design of the L-1011 Tristar, and Dave to establish his own ad agency.

Eventually Dave returned to Detroit destined to spend a notable design career with GM while Ken opted to remain in California and pursue a career creating fine art, primarily themed around visually telling stories of the automobile. With this career, it is fitting to say he succeeded in spades producing and selling in excess of 3,000 paintings not taking into account the art he created for the myriad posters, prints, calendars, and greeting cards!

His time at Ford did have one important and enduring consequence for it was where he’d met Liz, destined to become his lifelong companion. They wed April 1972 and, essentially, were inseparable over the ensuing 52 years even to passing, as you can see, just days apart from one another this past August.

Liz was not just his love but his perfect partner too for when Ken opted to give it five years to see if he could make a living for them creating fine art, mainly focused around the automobile, Liz took on handling the administrative tasks involved with selling, marketing, and fulfillment of purchases of the prints, posters, and holiday greeting cards. In turn that gave Ken more time to devote to his painting. As he would laughingly say later, “Those five years turned into over fifty” during which he conceived, researched and painted those over 3,000 pieces of original art featuring cars of historical significance as well as of design excellence and popularity while surrounding each in period and seasonal settings.

Nineteen-eighty-two found those artists displaying at Meadow Brook discussing amongst themselves the idea of forming a group. Beyond the core of these like-minded artists, membership in the group would be invitation-only with the idea to make automotive fine art more widely accepted and viewed as legitimate fine art. The following year the Automotive Fine Arts Society (AFAS) was formalized with “Ken Eberts named Founder of the Society [and designated its president] and Bob Larivee [Robert E Larivee Sr] its Founding Patron.” Eberts and Larivee were destined to fill their respective roles for the next 33 years.

In 1986 AFAS secured a presence on the Pebble Beach Concours showfield where, for the next thirty-two years, annually it would fill its large tent with a stunning display of automotive fine art. AFAS members also traveled to shows and events to display and sell including all the way to the right coast’s Amelia Island Concours.

Ken and Liz were often referred to as Mr and Mrs AFAS for together they tended many of the business details of the Automotive Fine Arts Society. Jay Koka wrote of them most eloquently in his comment following Hemmings Motor News’ on-line tribute to Ken and Liz: “The success of AFAS as an exhibiting organization was represented by Ken on the public side and by Liz in the background handling all the minute details of our various shows and activities. Ken was a prolific and appropriately well-celebrated painter. Perhaps not as well known, Liz provided the support necessary for one pursuing a professional career… along with the love and care of a long marriage.”

The Society published a Journal beginning in 1987 as a quarterly. With issue #23 (they were numbered sequentially with the exception of the Premier issue which bore no number) it had switched to becoming an annual renamed AFAS Magazine. By issue #35 the costs of producing and distributing a print magazine had risen to a prohibitive point. Thus the 2009 issue #35 was the last printed issue. The gauntlet was taken up by one of the AFAS member artists, Canadian Jay Koka who, in 2010, began an on-line newsletter that can be found at AutoArtReview.com The trouble is he’s now pulled his earlier issues so they can no longer be seen much less used as a resource documenting automotive art history or that of any individual artist.

Today, to visit the world’s largest automotive art gallery you do not need to board a flight and travel. Just key CarArt.us into your device at any time. This online gallery will give you the opportunity to view more than 1,500 artworks with subjects showing 130 different marques. They cover a full range of types of art from original paintings to prints, posters and sculptures created by 70 fine artists and designers from 20 countries on four continents.

Car Art, Inc was established in 2002 by Peter Aylett, himself a former automotive design engineer. He professionally and smoothly handles purchases that are then shipped directly to your door. He is also available to guide and facilitate the commissioning of a desired personalized painting created by many of CarArt’s represented artists.

These days, artists still display their offerings at shows everywhere. But just as Bring-A-Trailer changed how to list in order to show the collector car you are offering for sale to the widest audience possible, so too has how you now more easily discover the offerings of your favorite artist or learn of other talented, capable artists and their creations.

Ken and Liz’s ashes have been interred not far from the graves of Liz’s parents in her native Joplin, Missouri with a granite marker scheduled to be placed in November. Fittingly, Joplin is located on the Mother Road, Route 66.

Helen V Hutchings
Adapted from my remembrance written for and to be published in the Journal of the Society of Automotive Historians #328 hvh