The automotive industry is driven by innovation and profits, but it’s the eye-catching advertisements that are often the first introduction consumers get to a new car. Car ads from the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s are particularly memorable, becoming true pieces of Americana and anointing a select few as respected artists in their own right.

Among the greats from this era was Art Fitzpatrick, who created some of GM’s most memorable advertisements from this golden era of automotive marketing. Automotive News reports that Fitzpatrick passed away earlier this week at the age of 96 in his Carlsbad, California, home.

Serving in GM’s employ from 1959 until 1971, Fitzpatrick spent most of his life working for various automakers, including Packard as a designer, and Mercury as an ad man. In cahoots with his partner Van Kaufman, Fitzpatrick was responsible for many of Pontiac’s “wide track” performance car advertisements in exotic locales. So impressed was Pontiac CEO John DeLorean that he banned the use of photographs in advertising for the brand, relying instead on this talented pair of artists. All in all the two artists created 285 memorable Pontiac ads for which they’re best remembered.

But Fitzpatrick didn’t put down his pen after his stint at GM. In 2005 and 2008, Fitzpatrick and the US Postal Service released a series of commemorative stamps entitled “America on the Move” that featured pictures of classic American cars. Even at age 96, Fitzpatrick was personally on hand to deliver a speech back in June at the opening of a gallery featuring 70 drawings he had donated.

He will be missed, but his art will live on.