Antique Car Print - W Gould Brokaw - The Real Great Gatsby - Ormond Beach 1905

Treasures from THE AUTOMOTIVE COLLECTION at Lost Highways Archive & Research Library. By exclusive arrangement with The Grand Review.

Print size 14 x 24, and consciously formatted to work with a standard size store bought frame, or custom framed as you see fit.

I'm sorry to admit that I haven't read The Great Gatsby... yet... BUT my wife has read it twice so I'm at least a tiny bit redeemed for now. Sort of...

Though there have been many theories from both serious and armchair scholars over the years concerning who the model was for Gatsby in F. Scott Fitzgerald's iconic novel of The Roaring 20s, in modern times there seems be a consensus that he had W. Gould Brokaw in mind as he wrote.

Brokaw was everything grand and doomed about the completely financially unfettered gentleman of means during the Oughts and the Teens. Epicenter of horse racing, yacht racing, motorboat racing and inevitably car racing, William Gould Brokaw had huge estates on Long Island, in the Carolinas, and was regularly found as a guest of the robber barons and kings of industry in New York and everywhere. Hey, if ya got it, spend it, baby!

Unfortunately, his scandals also became front page news for many years and it is a solid guess that his life lived large and crazy, deep pocketed shenanigans left a considerable impression on the young Fitzgerald, long before he wrote his American masterpiece.

Here is Brokaw to the right of his custom built Renault with his driver Maurice Bernin at the 1905 Ormond Beach speed meet.

I am always delighted when an image we present is so 'stand alone' strong that people who have no idea what it's about purchase it simply because it speaks to them. Beyond the more likely places like Hershey and Macungie, I have taken this with me to street fairs, hot rod shows, equestrian events, you name it and people love it and buy it. I find myself telling the story while rolling it up and loading it into a tube just to make sure they take that home as well!

• Handmade item
• Materials: Art stock enhanced matte paper, archival ink
• Made to order
• Only ships within United States.

SHIPPING

All prints are shipped in a sturdy mailing tube for $8, which covers postage, tube and S & H.

BUYING MORE THAN ONE PRINT? Add a second print or any number thereafter of this or any other prints in our catalog and shipping is still just $8, total!!!

International shipping is available and reasonable. Please contact us for details.

A NOTE ON OUR PROCESS, OUR CHOICES AND THE QUALITY OF THE GRAPHIC CRAFTSMANSHIP THAT GOES INTO OUR PRINTS.

Every print we deem exciting enough to present to the public via our Etsy store or available here at our studio has gone through a number of steps. The first of those is always discovering and falling in love with an obscure image, always an original that we can hold in our hands. That image is speaking to us, sometime screaming “Don’t leave me here. See what I am, what I was, what I can be, what I SHOULD be!”

There is a real sense of excitement involved, and a great many smiles and knowing grins when we make that deal and bring that ancient print, that battered photo, that scrap of ephemera that contains some scrap of genius from an unknown commercial artist home with us, knowing already how we mean to approach its restoration.

There is the heady promise of a further hunt just as real as what drags a weekend fisherman out of bed at 3AM to work a favorite brook as we start our research, looking for that great backstory, and both ready and willing to tumble down as many rabbit holes as are revealed to us to get that story.

Then there is a meticulous digital restoration that is as often as much fun as riding a vintage Moto Guzzi on a winding coastal road. I don’t care if that sounds crazy, it really is like jumping in the saddle! So many choices, so many chances to take to subtly or spectacularly give new life to otherwise permanently obscure images.

This dedication and the ongoing rush of joy in the accomplishment of it, and the opportunity to share the results in our studio and here on Etsy, is the fire of passion that keeps these engines roaring. We make every effort to ensure our customers are not just satisfied but thrilled, and we happily stand 100% behind our work.