... we know this designer,he created some real giant flying boat Projects ...
We're talking about two different Hamels here.
The engineer G. Hamel associated with the Spaniard Emile Herrera and their 1942 "
Mégavion Transatlantique" was G. R. Hamel of Paris ... who wrote '
Principaux produits métallurgiques utilisés dans la construction aéronautique' in
Métaux spéciaux et alliages, Paris, Dec. 1930, vol. 5, no. 64 (p. 550-58).
The illustrator here is Georges Hamel (1900 - 1972) - a commercial artist and painter largely associated with art for the magazine
L'Illustration. However, he was not an aircraft designer. Like a lot of technical artists, 'Géo Ham' produced some convincing concept illustrations ... but they can't be called designs in an aeronautical engineering sense.
fr.m.wikipedia.org
Because of his evocative paintings and longevity as an artist, there are a lot of glowing tributes to Géo Ham. Deservedly so for the painter ... but maybe not so much for the man. After WW2, he was accused as a
collaborateur mainly because of his continued association with
L'Illustration. But there were other reasons to question his loyalties. In 1935, he had accompanied Italian troops into Abyssinia, basically 'white-washing' that invasion with loving drawings of Regia Aeronautica planes. The next year, he was in Spain with Franco's troops. When France fell in 1940, he supported the new Vichy regime. You get the picture ...
Géo Ham did produce at least one 'original' bit of industrial design c.1954. Emile Darl’mat had asked Hamel to design a fibreglass coupé body for the Peugeot 203 chassis. As can be seen in the link directly below, Hamel basically ripped off the design for the new Studebaker 'low-boy' design of Raymond Loewy - who Georges Hamel had just met in July 1953. So, great illustrator perhaps, but not much for original designs ...
Hamel's Darl’mat coupé concept:
http://leroux.andre.free.fr/geoham1ba.jpg
For tribute sites to Géo Ham, see:
We are building this website around the celebrated but nearly forgotten illustrator Geo Ham. Our ultimate goal is to present all his work here but we fear that reaching that goal will remain an illusion as he has been VERY creative throughout his life. Vintage Original 1935 MCF Car Poster...
www.geoham.com
www.invaluable.com
