1951 — “The Thompson” Changes to a Race Against Time: Hubbell 1963

• Title: 1951 — “The Thompson” Changes to a Race Against Time
• Author: Charles Hubbell
• Date: 1963
• Medium: Chromolithograph
• Condition: Excellent
• Inches: 16 x 13 1/4 [Paper]
• Centimeters: 40.64 x 33.66 [Paper]
• Product ID: 314007

(Average Speed, 635.68 MPH – North American F-86E “Sabre”)

Air flight aviation prints created by artist Charles H. Hubbell for Thompson Products, Inc., a manufacturer of automotive and aircraft parts in Cleveland, Ohio.

Charles H. Hubbell was one of the most renowned commercial aviation artists in U. S. history, with more than 500 paintings in his body of work. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, he entered the Naval Air Service during World War I. While stationed in Buffalo, New York, he redesigned airplanes at the Curtiss airplane factory. After the war, he returned to Cleveland and graduated from the Cleveland School of Art, later earning his pilot’s license in 1927. In 1934, Hubbell was commissioned by Fred Crawford, the chairman of Thompson Products, to paint past winners of the Thompson Trophy Air Race. This was the beginning of Hubbell’s long career as a free-lance artist for Thompson; he produced an annual illustrated calendar for the company from 1937 to 1972.

Today, many of Hubbell’s paintings are in the permanent collection of the Western Reserve Historical Society’s Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum in Cleveland. (Referenced from The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History, pub. 1997).