This stylized and dramatic large gouache painting was created by the well regarded American Golden Age Illustrator Wilmot Emerton Heitland as an interior magazine illustration. In this dramatic art deco scene, a confrontation in an artist’s studio plays out as the handsome male artist appears to be at odds with his pretty svelte modernist flapper model. Painting is nicely framed and matted behind glass and in a very fine state of conservation. Signed and dated lower right,

The career of Wilmot Emerton Heitland, N. A. (1893-1969) flourished during the ascendance of the Art Deco movement in the twenties and thirties. Despite his traditional classical training under Walter Biggs and Harvey Dunn, he incorporated the Art Deco outlook into his magazine illustrations. His pictures recall the technique and stylized manner of Henry Raleigh, his works were often punctuated with a heavy outline, and his color was accentuated by strong purples, red-violets, and blues.

Heitland was born in Superior, Wisconsin, studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where he won the Cresson traveling scholarship in 1913 and attended the Colarossi School in Paris. He also took classes at the Art Students League in New York.

He first painted illustrations for Collier’s Weekly in 1922. This was followed by work for most of the major magazines including Cosmopolitan, McCall’s, Woman’s Home Companion, Delineator and others. His work is represented in several museums, including the Brooklyn Museum of Art, The Art Institute of Chicago, and The Philadelphia Museum School of Art.