'Sensuous Steel': See stunning vintage cars in Nashville

• %22Sensuous Steel%3A Art Deco Automobiles%22 features 18 automobiles and two motorcycles
• Cars on display echo design details in the Art Deco Frist Center
• Exhibition on display through Sept. 15 in Nashville

The Frist Center for the Visual Arts is a non-collecting institution but it has one irreplaceable piece in its possession — its stunning 1930s Art Deco building. This summer the museum pays homage to that building and the era that produced it with "Sensuous Steel: Art Deco Automobiles," featuring 18 automobiles and two motorcycles. The exhibition includes sleek cars that might have driven off the silver screen and dark, curvaceous ones worthy of a superhero (or his arch-nemesis). There are also fun and fast roadsters and stately sedans.

"Sensuous Steel" remains on view at the Frist Center through Sept. 15 and was organized by guest curator Ken Gross, former director of the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles.

During the challenging economic climate of the 1930s, popular culture offered a temporary escape where stars such as Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers donned tuxes or shimmery evening gowns and danced through worlds full of chrome and glass. One design style of the era focused on the promise, or at least hope, of better times. From appliances to locomotives to skyscrapers, streamlined forms with implied motion and shiny surfaces celebrated modernity and newness. That style is a key feature of the vehicles in "Sensuous Steel."

Though the Great Depression, not luxury items, is how Frist Center chief curator Mark Scala thinks of the 1930s, he sees a connection between the automobiles on display here and design details in the Art Deco post office the Frist Center calls home.

"We thought it would be a really nice idea for people to make that connection between the building and the period in which it was made so they would have a better understanding of both things," Scala said.

The building was in part a "response to the community's need for work," Scala said, "but it was also an effort by the federal government to promote the notion of stability, of progress." The transportation motifs in the Frist Center lobby reflect those themes.

"Automobile transportation, but also planes and trains, ships ... focus on these aspects of modernity in a way that really ties into the imagery and iconography of these cars," Scala said.

A new series of coffee mugs bearing designs based on those lobby motifs are available in conjunction with "Sensuous Steel." Photographer John Baeder also created postcards and note cards for the gift shop. Similar to the photographs Baeder exhibited last summer at The Arts Company, these still lifes incorporate models of cars on display in "Sensuous Steel" along with other items related to the era.

There is also a lavishly photographed exhibition catalog.

Most of the cars in "Sensuous Steel" were limited-production models, hand-built by craftsmen and full of luxury appointments. Among them is a striking silver 1938 Hispano-Suiza H6B "Xenia" Coupe, whose distinctive trunk is fitted with custom luggage. The rear of the car swoops down into three points reminiscent of the aircraft designed by creator Jean Andreau.

A long, low-slung 1929 Cord L-29 Cabriolet that once belonged to Frank Lloyd Wright is also on view. Wright felt the car's strong horizontal lines complemented those of his buildings. This L-29 is in the architect's signature "Taliesin orange" and is accented with cream trim, canvas top and luggage cover along with a gleaming grill, round headlamps and etched door handles. The tires, including the side-mounted spare, have wide cream walls.

A 1930 Bugatti Type 46 Coupe and a 1934 Voisin Type C27 Aérosport Coupe sport two-toned paint jobs reminiscent of spectator shoes popular during that era. The geometric patterns on the Viosin's gray upholstery picks up the juxtaposition of curves and angles created by the exterior's shape and contrasting paint treatment.

Other impressive vehicles in "Sensuous Steel" include a jazzy 1930 Jordan Model Z Speedway Ace Roadster in a color scheme reminiscent of red velvet cake: creamy yellow exterior with red trim, deep-red leather interior with red carpet floor mats.

A red 1938 Tatra T97 is on loan from Nashville's Lane Motor Museum, and that museum and the Frist Center are offering discounted reciprocal admission during the run of the show. "It's a little bit of a hybrid," Jeff Lane said of the car, which has the profile of a sedan and a large fin at the rear. The front of the car looks very familiar, like a Volkswagen Beetle with hints of a Porsche.

"Every car is a winner here, every one is best of show," Ken Gross said after a day of maneuvering cars into the galleries.

"I think it will absolutely floor people with its beauty," Scala said of the show. "It will also change the way people see the world."

Working on the exhibition has been a revelation about the "coming together of art and industrial design," he said.

"Sensuous Steel" is also, unfortunately, a record of failed business schemes. "Part of what we're trying to show here besides this Art Deco elegance ... this styling, is special cars, cars that were limited in production," Gross said. "These are a lot of going-out-of-business stories."

Some of the makers represented here were asked to design the car of the future for the 1933 Chicago Exposition of Progress, Gross said. Packard, Cadillac, Pierce-Arrow and Duesenberg submitted entries.

"The Pierce-Arrow stole the show, and they still went out of business a few years later because these cars were $10,000 apiece," Gross said. (According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average American household income for the years 1934-36 was $1,524.)

Nevertheless the car, with its distinguished air and seductive red trim, might have belonged to a successful 1930s businessman, a financier or industrialist who managed to ride out the economic storm in style.