Friday, October 2, 1998
A bicycle. Built for view
ON-CAMPUS: The history of the original horseless carriage is on
display at the Fowler Museum
By Megan Dickerson
Daily Bruin Staff
Computers and bicycles may not seem like kindred spirits in the
product world, but Pryor Dodge, guest curator of "Bicycles:
History, Beauty, Fantasy," a traveling exhibit opening at the
Fowler Museum on Sunday, begs to differ.
"There’s a mad rush today, as there was with bicycles in the
1800s, to improve the technology of computers," said Dodge, who
owns one of the largest antique bicycle and bicycle paraphernalia
collections in the United States. "Manufacturers wanted to make it
more efficient, more practical, more universal."
This progression makes sense for the two-wheeled vehicle, billed
as the world’s first democratic form of transportation. Once an
expensive diversion for the leisure class, the original "horseless
carriage" boasts a colorful history that culminates in the American
dream: a bicycle for every man and a tricycle for every child.
Which, Dodge said, is much like the low-price computer evolution
of today.
The tall, understated Dodge spoke quietly, conveying a unique
passion for the vehicles many know simply as pre-driver’s license
transportation. The bicycles of Dodge’s all-consuming hobby are not
the Schwinns and handbell-festooned bikes of the baby boomer
generation, nor are they titanium made-for-speed machines. They are
sturdy masterpieces, some softened with carved animal heads and
graceful spirals, others lightened with touches of bamboo.
But "overlooked" is the primary way Dodge might have described
the bicycle.
"You can go to a science and technology museum and see a couple
bicycles, but they’re usually hidden in the back," Dodge said,
towering over the turn-of-the-century bicycles on display. "The
public generally does not consider the bicycle to be as
important."
In books in which Henry Ford seemingly spearheads the only
vehicular revolution, historians often ignore the fact that the
bicycle was the first to go by the term.
"The New York Times did an anniversary special on the
automobile, and not once was the word bicycle mentioned," Dodge
said.
Betsy Quick, the Fowler Museum’s director of education, said
that the exhibit also makes visitors think about the bicycle’s
often-shelved history in a car-driving society.
"It is an extremely important and provocative exhibit,
especially for residents of Los Angeles, where we rely so heavily
on the automobile," Quick said.
The Fowler presentation does the little vehicle justice.
Thirty-three rare bicycles and their precursors line the tan walls,
shadowed lightly from the back.
The two-room showing is brightened by detailed, full-color ad
posters, following the history and art of the bicycle from the 1817
wooden hobbyhorse to the revolutionary circa-1900s Safety Bike. The
museum placed a smattering of the posters underneath the bicycles
they once promoted, conveying a sense of historical place to the
set-up.
Sharon Trahan, a museum preparator who has worked on the exhibit
from start to finish, appreciated the way the posters compliment
the bikes.
"I like the saturation of color and the imagery," Trahan said,
pointing out a butterfly-enhanced art-nouveau picture on a muted
wall.
"But I think I like the bicycles themselves best, the curves of
the design," she said with a smile.
Going beyond the common
well-placed-specimen-with-a-dash-of-history formula, Dodge stocked
traditional glass museum cases with knicknacks of the bicycle era,
ranging from an 18th century, speedometer-shaped Dance Card, to an
erotic cigarette case with busty, Rubenesque ladies straddling a
bicycle.
There is also a good dose of humor in the exhibit. In a section
with what Dodge calls "an accident theme," porcelain plates portray
unlucky riders tumbling over the front wheels of their velocipedes,
while postcards tell wordless stories of cycle mishaps.
Dodge actually fashioned some of the exhibit’s most interesting
elements himself.
Working from antique examples, Dodge created a photoviewer for
more than eight stereoscopic images, all featuring bicycle riders.
Visitors see the pictures, which turn-of-the-century artists
originally made with two similar photos, through telescope-like
eyeholes in large wooden boxes.
Dodge created a zoetrope-like device that chronicles a few
seconds in the life of an animated bicycler. The original animation
strips and wheels, like the stereoscope images, line the wall above
the reproductions.
The posters, however, are perhaps the most integratable subjects
in the exhibit.
Posters by Mucha, the famed art-nouveau poster artist, represent
not only the bicycles but an important artistic period. In fact,
most of the early 1900s posters feature only inklings of the
bicycle they advertise; like a taunting bike strip show, they
reveal only a spoke here, a handbar there. It’s more about the
ambiance and the aura a bicycle represents, Dodge said – that’s
what sent the bikes flying out of the shops.
For Dodge, who began collecting antique velocipedes nearly 30
years ago, the bicycle holds a special mystique.
The New York native didn’t remember the brand of his childhood
bicycle, but he did remember what sparked his interest in
collecting. After watching the movie "Around the World in 80 Days,"
he fell in love with the graceful curves of a featured velocipede,
the two-wheeler with the oversized front wheel.
Thirty or so velocipedes later, he has succeeded in amassing a
collection that represents almost every phase in the bicycle’s
early development.
The collection exhibited in "Bicycle: History, Beauty, Fantasy"
stops at the 1920s, where Dodge says the bicycle was already
"perfect."
To the viewer who sees a bicycle as simply a secondary driving
machine with streamers on the handlebars and chrome on the wheels,
this makes the history all the more important.
MUSEUMS: "Bicycles: History, Beauty, Fantasy" opens at the
Fowler Museum on Sunday. The exhibit is on view Wednesdays through
Sundays, noon to 5 p.m., and Thursdays until 8 p.m. Admission is
free through December 1998. For information, call (31 0)
825-4361.
The Velociple Tricycle, made in France in 1868, features the
carved head of a griffin.
BAHMAN FARAHDEL/Daily Bruin
The bicycles exhibit at the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural
History is the personal collection of Pryor Dodge, compiled over
the past 26 years.
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© 1998 ASUCLA Communications Board