Dean Ellis (American, 1920 - 2009) "Henry Ford" Signed middle right. Original Oil painting on Masonite. Provenance: Collection of James A. Helzer (1946-2008), Founder of Unicover Corporation. This painting is the original painting which was published on the Fleetwood Commemorative Cover for The Shapers of America series issued in 1987. Born on a farm in the midst of the Civil War, Henry Ford did not find his true profession until he began working with the internal combustion machine, chiefly "to lift farm drudgery off flesh and blood and lay it on steel and motors." He quickly discovered, however, that "people were more interested in something that would travel on roads, than in something that would do work on the farm." His first motor car was a two-seater buggy powered by a four horsepower gasoline engine, and was on the road in the Depression year of 1893. Depression or not, it caught the public fancy; soon thousands, then tens of thousands, were on the dirt roads, and soon the popularity of the new motor car led to a nationwide demand for paved highways. In the meantime, Ford tried his skills at building racing cars: these proved effective, but not profitable, and he returned to making a car so cheap that everyone could afford to own one. In 1908, he devised his most ingenious idea ... the ever-famous Model T which, by devising an assembly line technique, he was able to sell for less than four hundred dollars! The Model T was, or seemed, almost indestructible. The most typical American of all cars, the Model T was the first mass-produced assembly line car: the first car that everyone could afford. In its appearance and its character, it represented the symbol of American equality. Image Size: 18 x 21 in. Overall Size: 24 x 27 in. Unframed. (B10995)