About the artist

Don Coker is a former award-winning newspaper art director, illustrator, cartoonist and designer. His work has appeared in newspapers from coast to coast and abroad. He has won dozens of awards in newspaper illustration, cartooning and design, including, along with the rest of the design staff, recognition by The Pulitzer committee in assisting a sister newspaper in their Pulitzer-winning coverage of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Today, the artist is a full time painter and illustrator and has thrown himself into painting one of his first loves, the automobile in all its glory, from classics to hot rods and customs, to sports cars and racers. “I fell in love with cars when I was maybe ten or twelve years old, building models of everything from 'T Buckets' and '40 Ford Coupes to muscle cars. I collected Ed “Big Daddy” Roth's line of 'Ratfink' stickers and figures and loved the kitschy hot rod B movies of the 60s, like the ubiquitous 'Hot Rods To Hell'. I have always loved automotive racing, from NASCAR to Formula 1 and everything in between.”

Don works mostly in oils on canvas and board, but also works in watercolor, pencil and pen & ink. His work is mostly satirical or caricatured, reflecting his career as a newspaper cartoonist and caricaturist. His influences vary from illustrators, David Levine (whom he met), Norman Rockwell and Jack Davis to painters, Edward Hopper and the Wyeths to automotive artists, Dave Bell, Dave “Big” Deal and Bill Neale. “In the early seventies right out of high school I picked up the debut issue of Street Rodder Magazine and discovered the art of Dave Bell on that last page. I was hooked. I still have the first two or three years of that magazine. I loved car caricature from that moment on and thought someday I would love to do that. All these years later, after a newspaper career, marriage, family, four dogs, one really dumb cat and several classic cars later, here I am, living the dream.”