Catalogue entry · Lot 0020
Alan Stammers’ pencil study of Jenson Button’s Brawn GP, Championship Year 2009, signed by the artist and numbered 2 of 250.
Background
Few championships have been as improbable as Brawn GP’s. Rescued from the ashes of Honda’s withdrawal at the end of 2008, the team arrived for 2009 with the BGP 001 and its clever double diffuser, and Jenson Button won six of the first seven races. He sealed the drivers’ title with fifth place at the Brazilian Grand Prix, and Brawn took the constructors’ championship too, in what proved to be its first and only season.
For Button it was the reward for nearly a decade of patience, and for British fans one of the warmest title stories of the modern era.
The artist
Alan Stammers grew up on a farm bordering Snetterton Circuit in Norfolk, taught himself to draw, and has worked as a full time motor sport artist since the late 1980s. He works exclusively in pencil, now from his studio in East Harling, and his drawings have been endorsed by many of the sport’s greatest names. Since 1988 much of his best known work has been published through Peter Ratcliffe’s Legends in Time, alongside a range of signed and numbered prints sold directly by the artist.
The lot
The sheet is captioned Jenson Button, Championship Year (Brawn GP) 2009. Stammers draws the Brawn from the front quarter on a plain white ground, the high nose, the wide front wing and the tall rear wing all crisply defined, with Button’s helmet framed in the cockpit. The artist’s signature is at lower left, and the edition number, 2 of 250, is written by hand at lower right above the printed words Print Number.
This is one of the smaller format sheets from the group the seller bought directly from Alan Stammers, approximately 18 by 12.5 inches. It is offered unframed.
Condition
No marks or damage. Stored flat and out of sunlight.
Provenance notes (the honest bit)
Acquired by the seller directly from the artist. Signed by Alan Stammers. No signature by Button is claimed.
This lot is offered under Opening Stint’s Premium Catalog seller attestation: the seller has confirmed in writing that the account given to us is true, and a summarised copy of that attestation goes with the item to the buyer.
Summary
A low number from the edition, celebrating the one season wonder that became a World Champion’s car, drawn in the clean, precise pencil that is Stammers’ signature.
It will not find you a double diffuser. It will, however, remind you that fairy tales do occasionally happen in Formula One.
Collection and delivery
Located in Worthing, West Sussex. Available for collection, or the buyer may arrange shipping directly with the seller.