• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Key Artists
    • Rolf Armstrong
    • Mahlon Blaine
    • Henry Clive
    • Gil Elvgren
    • Cardwell Higgins
    • Earl Moran
    • Charles Gates Sheldon
    • Arthur Prince Spear
    • Bunny Yeager
  • About
  • Browse by Topic
  • Contact

Grapefruit Moon Gallery

Original Art from the Grand Age of American Illustration

  • Gallery Blog
  • Golden Gallery
  • Fine & Decorative
  • Illustration & Advertising
  • Paperback & Pulp
  • Pin-Up & Glamour
Paperback & Pulp Art

Teen-Age Terror

Artist:James Alfred Meese
Date:1958
Medium:Oil on masonite panel
Dimensions:Sight size 23 1/4" by 33" Framed 30" x 40"
Condition:Excellent
Original Use:Cover for Fawcett Gold Medal Giant Book - Teen-Age Terror
Full view of oil on gesso masonite panel
Full view of oil on gesso masonite panel
The artists signature lower right
The artists signature lower right
The painting as it appeared on the cover of The Fawcett Gold Medal Giant paperback title of 1958, Teen-Age Terror
The painting as it appeared on the cover of the 1958 Fawcett Gold Medal Giant paperback Teen-Age Terror

The aptly titled Teen-Age Terror shows a lurid, youth gone wild, over the top image of a highly sensationalized girl gang initiation. In this oil-on-masonite cover painting, American illustrator James Alfred Meese captured the moral panic over juvenile delinquency that was a focal point of American culture in the 1950s, most notably explored in films like Rebel Without a Cause and Blackboard Jungle. The work was created as the cover of a purported “true crime” expose into “the inside story of juvenile delinquency told in actual cases of violence and sex,” and the image is a masterpiece of scandalous pulp-fiction paperback art.

Detail
Detail
Framed view
Framed view
Frame corner profile
Frame corner profile
Pack of paperback slug line text
Back of paperback slug line text
verso view before framing
verso view before framing

Teen-Age Terror

Artist: James Alfred Meese

Filed Under: Paperback & Pulp Art, Sorry, It's Sold
Tagged With: James Alfred Meese, James Meese, lurid, original cover art, paperback, rebel without a cause, sleaze
Added to Gallery: December 15, 2017

 

Contact Grapefruit Moon Gallery



    Primary Sidebar

    Join our mailing list

    Grapefruit Moon Gallery Around the Web

    • Facebook
    • Instagram

    Copyright © 2025