Motobecane Motorcycle Poster – Geo Ham
Poster : Motobécane Motorcycle Poster – Geo Ham
What could be better than riding around the French coastline on your brand new motorbike with your girl riding pillion? I guess that’s exactly what went through the mind of the French motorsports artist Georges Hamel when he designed this poster for the Motobécane motorcycle manufacturers.
The motorcycle advert depicts a young, fashionably dressed couple out for a ride. The poster obviously predates today’s strict safety restrictions. The gentleman in charge of his brand new Motobécane Z24 is wearing a shirt, tie, and knitted jumper along with a tweed flat cap and his goggles fixed high on his forehead.
His beautiful companion is wearing a white blouse underneath a bright red cardigan. They are obviously travelling at speed because the wind has blown open the woman’s black skirt to reveal a cheeky, stocking leg and the scarf tied beneath her cloche hat is billowing behind her in the breeze.
If the couple do have the misfortune to come off, their clothing won’t protect them much, but at least they’ll look ‘spiffing’ on the way to the hospital!
Motobécane Motorcycles
The Motobécane manufacturing company was established in 1923 going on to manufacture bicycles, mopeds, motorcycles and cars. The company designed their first motorcycle in 1923.
The company produced its first four-stroke machine with a 250cc capacity in 1933. The motorbike’s success ensured that during the decade Motobecane had become France’s largest manufacturer of Motobikes.
Motobécane Z24 or Tourisme Luxe?
There is a Z24 reference on the number plate of Ham’s illustrated motorcycle, and Motorbecane did in fact produce a Z24C model. However, online photos of the Z24C don’t look like the bike on the advertising poster. The motorcycle on the poster appears to be Geo Ham’s impression of the 1938 Series Tourisme Luxe. Three types of the Tourism were produced, the R33 250cc, R44 350cc and R55 500cc models. However, we sell posters, so we’re happy to be corrected if any of you fine people know better, please let us know.
Géo Ham, Georges Hamel was a French painter and illustrator. He is known for his illustrations of aeroplanes or automobiles which appeared in L’Illustration. In 1918, he was received at the École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs. He was appointed as an Official Peintre de l’Air in 1931.
Geo Ham, The Artist of Speed
Georges Hamel Geo Ham was born in Laval, western France in September 1900. He is thought to have shown promise as an artist at an early age. It was, however, two events in his childhood that instilled a profound love for speed. The first, when Georges was eleven, was his experience of watching a bi-plane fly over and land in his hometown. The second came just two years later, when a motorcycle and automobile race was held in Laval. The two events are believed to have captured Hamel’s imagination and given the young boy a lifelong interest in machines that went fast.
At eighteen years of age Georges moved to Paris and enrolled at the Ecole des Arts Decoratifs (National School of Decorative Arts). Just two years later, he was commissioned to produce his first cover illustration for the French car magazine Omnia. The image was created under his nom-de-plume Geo Ham. By the mid 1920s Ham’s reputation was starting to grow. His illustrations and paintings were being regularly published. His work appeared in the French weekly newspaper L’Illustration.
It was his work in the 1930s that cemented his reputation as the go-to artist for posters relating to planes, motorbikes and automobiles. His output was quite prolific and the standard of his work remained exemplary. In 1933, Ham was commissioned to produce the official poster for the 1933 Monaco Grand Prix. This was no mean feat. Especially as the posters for the previous three events, in 1930, 1931 and 1932 had all been designed by Robert Falcucci, who was also a superb motorsport painter and illustrator. However, Ham’s fresh, new, modern style is clear to see in “The light at the end of the tunnel” Monaco 1933 poster. He would go on to produce the Monaco Grand Prix posters for the next four events. Other well known and much loved motorsport racing posters produced by Ham include his 1938 Reims Grand Prix and 1954 French Grand Prix ACF posters and his posters promoting the Le Mans 24 hour races among other classic European racing circuits. Personal Geo Ham favorites are the Pau 1959 Grand Prix print and his 1934 SHELL advertising poster.
By this time his artwork wasn’t restricted to automobiles. He enthusiasm for speed carried over onto posters for motorcycle and aeroplanes Examples include his superb 1933 Circuit de Saint Cloud race meeting poster and his advertising posters for the Motobécane Motorcycle company. Goe Ham’s poster for 1947 French Grand Prix and Aviation Meeting manages to combine his love for aircraft and racing cars.
In the thirties and forties Geo Ham established himself as the finest poster artist in his field. He continued to illustrate cars, planes and motorcycles well into the early 1960s. In automotive poster collecting circles Geo Ham is widely regarded as one of the finest automotive poster artists of all time.
