Pedal Power

May is National Bike Month!

Our star cyclist by Louis Simon hails from the Smithsonian American Art Museum's folk art collection.

Louis Simon, a champion motorcycle racer, opened his motorcycle sales and repair shop in 1912 on Manhattan Avenue in Brooklyn. Inspired by his love of racing, Simon invented many solutions to cycling problems for which he earned several patents.

He carved his first figure of a boy riding a bicycle in l922 when he began selling and repairing bicycles. As a public announcement of his new inventory, Simon attached the sign high on the exterior wall of his shop.…

Simon made this second carving during the Great Depression while work was scarce. It hung inside the shop next to the bicycle racks. When viewed from the front, the boy appears to be riding a complete bicycle, so artfully has Simon arranged the parts. He constructed the figure's body from wood boards glued together to form a block which was then carved. The arms and legs are cut from single boards bolted together at the joints. When the wheel turns in this version, the pedals rotate, pushing the legs up and down to resemble a cyclist's pumping action.

Source: Lynda Roscoe Hartigan. Made with Passion: The Hemphill Folk Art Collection in the National Museum of American Art (Washington, D.C. and London: For the National Museum of American Art by the Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990).

Pictured: Louis Simon, 1884 Russia–1970 USA, Bicycle Shop Sign, early 1930s, carved and painted wood, gesso, metal and rubber bicycle parts, marbles, and metal hardware, 34 1/2 x 14 3/4 x 23 1/2 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Herbert Waide Hemphill, Jr. and museum purchase made possible by Ralph Cross Johnson.