CHARLES MAHER
Automotive Fine Arts Society
Charles Maher was born in Kansas City, Missouri but grew up in Miami, Florida and began his automotive journey at the wheel of a 1955 Chevy Bel Air, followed by a 1960 Chrysler 300, the family cars. He received a Bachelors Degree in Fine Art from the University of Notre Dame, specializing in Industrial Design.
Charlie has held positions as a designer at Ford Motor Company, art director for a graphics firm and has been an independent artist-illustrator-designer for over 13 years. He has provided design services for the Bricklin Car Co., Grumman Corp., the K-Mart/Little Caesars NASCAR team, Toyota, Honda and other manufacturers.
Additional credits include: Automobile Magazine, Road & Track, Racer, Autoweek and poster art for the Concours d’Elegance at Ault Park, Woodward Avenue Dream Cruise, and the Meadow Brook Historic Race to name a few. With his art he endeavors to capture the elegance of the classics and the power and drama of motorsports.
It wasn't until he went to races with a friend that the car bug really bit. Sports cars and racing predominate his paintings today, though he can turn out a mean Duesenberg or Packard for a concours poster (he's been commissioned for posters for the Cincinnati and Dayton, Ohio Concours, the Gilmore/Classic Car Club of America museum, as well as several for the Woodward Avenue Dream Cruise).
He is a past president of the National Automotive Artists Association, and currently a committee member for the Meadow Brook Historic Races. When the Automotive Fine Art Society began receiving new members, Charlie was one of the first invited to exhibit. He has done cover paintings for AutoWeek, and Sports Car Market, and his work has also appeared in Racer, Road & Track, Mustang Monthly, Automobile, and Car Collector magazines. Research takes him to six or seven professional races and another two or three vintage racing events (besides those he's exhibiting at) every year.
Charlie's style has much to do with color choices and, in his motorsports work especially, playfulness with the sense of motion, light, reflectivity, shape and drama. The emphasis on color and drama is evident in a glowing quality to the light in his work that may be inspired by his growing-up years in Miami, Florida or his cultural influences as a young adult of the psychedelic '60s (remember those bright orange and lime-green cars?), but which he also attributes to being partially colorblind. Next to the easel in his studio there's a board on the wall with stripes of acrylic paint, each one labeled by color name and number, "that keeps me from embarrassing myself too often," Charlie says.
Commission Charles to create a unique painting for you!
Call Peter Aylett at 949-443-0500 or
email for details.