In our newest category "The Screening Room", Grapefruit Moon Gallery offers original art created and used for marketing in the movie world. Please check out our collection of original Mexican Movie Art, which takes the lurid, sensationalist, bizarre, and sometimes disturbing vision of the pulp artists a step further. This collection of newly unearthed paintings from south of the border is available exclusively through the Grapefruit Moon Gallery website.

A Glamorous Jean Harlow Pastel Charles Sheldon	A Dashing Joan Crawfod R. Wilson Hammell

A wonderful original oil on canvas which presumably was used as a poster design for the 1922 Silent Film Short Comedy In The Movies, directed by Charley Chase. Ratterman was a gifted illustrator whose work appeared in all of the major "slick magazines" as advertisements and/or covers.

A glamourous, large rendering of screen star siren Ginger Rogers in pastel done for a cover of a late 1930's movie magazine by noted Brown & Bigelow pin-up artist and prolific cover illustrator Zoe Mozert. Mozert executed over 400 covers for such titles as Screen Book, True Romance, True Confessions and Randolph Hearst's American Weekly. The most famous female pin-up artist, Mozert (1907-1993), is an exemplary disciple of the Rolf Armstrong pastel style. Often her own model, Mozert is noted for rejecting sexy girl cliches in favor of depicting more real seeming young women, with recognizably individual features and personalities.

A fine and rare surviving original pastel by Charles Sheldon of the young and lovely Jean Harlow from her early years around the time of her breakthrough role in Howard Hughes' epic film of 1930 Hells Angels.

This was undoubtably used as a cover for one of the movie magazines of the era, the work is signed lower right and inkstamped on the verso with the artists Mass. address and the number #7. Sheldon was a frequent cover artist for Photoplay Magazine and this was most likely commissioned by that publication. A coveted example of Early tinseltown glamour portraiture and featuring the eras brightest and biggest star.

We are pleased to have this original pastel by the talented and prolific pin-up artist and illustrator R. Wilson Hammell. This Spanish attired, flapper girl envisioning of Joan Crawford was created either as a calendar art print for The Joseph Hoover Calendar Company or an early talkie movie era Magazine Cover. Crawford was an eager publicity hound in the early 1930's filling the void created by the elusive Garbo, who refused any publicity during the era of Crawford's ascendancy to stardom.

A well rendered, art deco Hollywood glamour era original pastel which appears to be a cover for a period early talkie era Hollywood publication. The star looks to be Anita Louise and the work is remarkably similar in style to other period cover works of Marland Stone, and Earl Christy.

A smartly conceived and modern jazz age oil-on-canvas painting of a ravishing Jeanette MacDonald, the cover for The New Movie Magazine, June 1932. Executed in a high glamour, severe art deco style by the American Illustrator McClelland Barclay. Work is a defining example by this talented and prolific artist and comes beautifully framed in an ornate gold gilt American Arts & Crafts fine museum quality carved frame. A lost treasure from the golden age of Hollywood glamour and elegance.

An original pastel by noted cover illustrator Marland Stone a striking pastel portrait of the fetching and talented Silent Movie and early talkie star Norma Shearer.This appeared as a cover for Screenland Magazine under the title Spotlight Cover of Norma Shearer.

A chaotic, Wild West battle scene, featuring the daring horseback escape of a man condemmed to die by hanging. Behind him is seen a busy Brigitte Bardot-looking blonde in skimpy clothing, overtaken by the emotion of the day. This is a captivating Mexican take on the American classic film genre, the western. Originally created as movie art for Amarga Justicia ("Bitter Justice"), this is a finely rendered and wildly cool gouache by the talented illustrator Beton.

Two Old West ladies of the night jiggle at gunpoint alongside snakes, lizards and spiders, as a hooded villian creeps around the corner to rob a bank. It is a modernized, hyper sexualized yet quaint look at the old West abounding with cowboy hats and spurs. The charm of the Mexican Movie art genre shines through with this homage to and reenvisioning of low American b-movie culture and popular cheesecake illustration.

A well-rendered depiction of a ghostly addict and a horrified onlooker, both menaced by a faceless hand wielding a syringe. An evocative yet lurid example of Mexican movie poster art, for the film Ambicion, Droga, y Muerte: De Policia ("Ambition, Drugs, and Death: Police Files"). This is a different take on the war on drugs and a colorful and harrowing look at the real life crisis which continues to provide fodder for art to this day.