17: AN EARLY GM STYLING DEPT PAINTING FOR ILLINOIS CENTRAL

Color Scheme for ICRR Green Diamond Streamliner (Late 1930s.)
The unsigned tempera painting on tissue for GM's Electro-Motive Styling Section retains its original label upper right corner.

Introduced in 1936, the Green Diamond was Illinois Central's first streamlined train. Although its locomotive was powered by a Diesel manufactured by General Motors subsidiary Winton, the locomotive body was designed by Pullman and was arguably not as aesthetically pleasing as the General Motors Diesels made in 1937 and later. About the only thing the paint scheme shown here has in common with the 1936 train is the railroad's green diamond logo that it adopted at about the same time as it introduced that train. However, like the City of Miami paint schemes in the other Illinois Central paintings in this collection, this one wasn't used for the train, which was introduced in 1940. In fact, the final scheme didn't even use the green diamond logo, instead using a red diamond that put the name of the railroad below it rather than within it. The one thing all of these City of Miami paint schemes have in common is that they flow directly into the colors of the passenger train, which were yellow with a green roof and narrow red stripes above and below the yellow sides. This is very different from the colors used on other Illinois Central trains, such as the City of New Orleans, and eventually the City of Miami would be repainted in the chocolate brown colors used on other IC trains.
Image size 8 x 20, measures 20 x 25.5 inches overall.
Very good original untouched condition. There are no issues of major scratches, losses, repairs, in-painting or touch-up.
Provenance: The Fred Roniger Estate Collection.
$500 - $5,000