Start Your Engines

Start Your Engines is an Ana Inciardi mini print rendered in a bold woodblock or linocut style, depicting two crossed checkered racing flags rising above a pair of open-wheel race cars. The foreground car is printed in vivid red and carries the number one on its side panel, while a second car rendered in black trails just behind it. The composition is framed within a rounded rectangle, and the words "Indianapolis 500" appear below the cars, with "500" printed in the same red used for the lead car. The overall palette is spare: red, black, and the warm natural tone of the paper ground. The Indianapolis 500 is one of the oldest and most celebrated automobile races in the world, held annually at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indiana. The race has been a fixture of American motorsport culture since the early twentieth century, and its iconography, checkered flags, open-wheel cars, and the number one position, is immediately recognizable. Collectors who follow American sporting culture and vintage graphic traditions are drawn to this print for its confident, mid-century poster sensibility. The flat color printing and hand-carved line quality give it an immediacy that feels both nostalgic and graphic. It fits naturally alongside her other landmark and cultural-icon subjects and pairs well with prints from her broader print series that focus on American places and pastimes. Signed in pencil at the lower right with the title written below in the artist's hand, it presents as a complete and considered object rather than a peripheral piece in her catalog.