Artwork fit for the Guggenheim and for your home!

A.F. Van Order, a 1998 Motorcycle

Hall of Fame inductee, was an early motorcycle racing historian and photographer. His

classic body of racing photographs, spanning the 1910s to the 1930s, are some of the few

that survived from that era. His photography was used to illustrate several of the seminal

books on American motorcycle racing during the first half of the 20th century. Van Order was

also a columnist for Motorcyclist magazine from the 1930s to the 1950s. His column, "30

Years Ago with Van," kept an excellent record of motorcycling racing at a time when the

history of the sport was not considered by many in the industry to be very

important.

Many of Van Order's original film images, converted from glass plates, sat

in a shoebox for more than 40 years, passed down to his daughter. The box of film was

eventually passed down to Van Order's great-grandson, Jim Bolingmo, and under his care the

precious images were restored and preserved. Several of Van Order's images were displayed as

part of the Guggenheim Museum's "The Art of the Motorcycle" exhibit. It's safe to say that

if it were not for A.F. Van Order, much of the rich history of the early days of motorcycle racing in America would be lost to time.

Pictured here is Jim Davis at Dodge City.