• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Recent Additions
  • The Gallery
    • About
    • Browse by Topic
    • eBay
    • Sorry, It’s Sold
  • Guarantee & Policies
    • Guarantee
    • Shipping & Payment
    • Amazon.com Shipping Information
    • eBay Buyer Protection
  • Contact & Social Media
    • E-mail & Phone
    • eBay
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Pinterest
    • Twitter

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
Sorry, It's Sold

Swan’s Mate

Artist:Herbert Morton Stoops
Date:1925
Medium:Oil on Canvas
Dimensions:Sight Size 32" X 44" Framed 33 1/2" X 45 1/2"
Condition:Excellent
Original Use:Interior story art for the September 1925 edition of Cosmopolitan Magazine
Price: SOLD
Full view
Full view
The artist's monogram and date lower right
The artist’s monogram and date lower right
Detail
Detail

This large and evocative interior illustration by Herbert Morton Stoops was commissioned by Cosmopolitan magazine to accompany a story titled “Swans Mate” which appeared in the September 1925 edition. The briskly composed Western frontier scene shows a wild west culture war where a citified young lady encounters a rugged cowboy on the edge of the frontier. The grizzled ranch hand is either amused or annoyed with the pert, smartly attired, cigarette smoking bobbed hair flapper girl he has just come upon. Conceived with broad brush strokes which create a wonderful sense of urgency and movement. This painting was previously in the collection of and exhibited at The National Cowboy Hall of Fame and Western Heritage Center, the verso retains an exhibit label. Stoops painted in a style much like Dean Cornwell and Howard Pyle, and is a Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame Honoree.

Detail
Detail
Detail
Detail
Framed view in simple silver painted wood frame
Framed view in simple silver painted wood frame
Verso exhibit label
Verso exhibit label
Verso view of back canvas on original pine stretcher bars
Verso view of back canvas on original pine stretcher bars

(1888 – 1948)
Herbert Morton Stoops was born in 1888 in Logan City, Utah. At some point in Herbert’s childhood the Stoops family moved to a ranch in Idaho – then a wild, sparsely populated land, and home to the most spectacular scenery in the United States. Native American tribes roamed Idaho’s plains and mountainsides. Stoops grew up during the twilight of the Old West, amidst ranchers, miners, cowboys and Indians – larger-than-life characters who would people many of his illustrations and paintings. The open sky was his earliest canvas, and his artist’s eye studied the proportions of oxen, cattle, mules, and above all, horses – wild or tame, standing still or galloping hell for leather, it didn’t matter; Stoops was able to imbue his two-dimensional horses with a spirit of snorting, straining, three-dimensional life.

Young Herbert went on to pursue a higher education, attending Utah State College, where he graduated in 1905. In college he took his first formal art classes. This early training – added to his innate ability and the vibrant images he’d been stockpiling throughout his youth – appears to have stood him in good stead, because by 1910 Herbert Morton Stoops had already gained employment as a staff artist for the San Francisco Chronicle, and later, for the San Francisco Examiner.

In 1914, Stoops moved to Chicago, where he took classes at the Art Institute while working as a staff artist for the Chicago Tribune. He was beginning to make a name for himself as a newspaper illustrator, and was also starting to do black-and-white drawings, page decorations, and story headings for Blue Book, the literary pulp magazine with which he would be identified for the rest of his life.

But by this time the world was at war, so the budding artist enlisted in the Army, serving in France as First Lieutenant in the Sixth Field Artillery of the First Division. Stoops sent drawings from his sketchbook back to the home front. A compilation of his wartime sketches, Inked Memories of 1918, was published in 1924.

After the war, Stoops moved to New York City and married Elise Borough. Under the tutelage of Harvey Dunn, Stoops applied his early experiences to canvas and paper, becoming one of the most sought-after illustrators of his day. By the early ’20s, oils by Stoops were featured in Cosmopolitan and Good Housekeeping alongside the works of illustration giants. He began painting covers for The American Legion Magazine, a publication for which he would work constantly in the years to come.

Stoops had been a contributing artist to the pages of Blue Book previous to World War I, but editor Donald Kendicott soon took notice and assigned him a cover. In 1935 he commissioned Herbert to paint all of Blue Book’s monthly covers. Their creative collaboration would last until the artist’s death.

In 1940 Stoops received the Isidor Medal from the National Academy for his work, Anno Domini, which depicted the ravages of war on refugees. During World War II he did several posters for the office of War Information.

Stoops was working on a series of monthly covers for Blue Book when, on May 19, 1948, after a period of failing health, he died at his art studio residence on Barrow Street in Greenwich Village. He was only 60 years old but he had left a legacy of thousands of unforgettable images that had delighted the American public.

Colonel Charles Waterhouse

Swan’s Mate

Artist: Herbert Morton Stoops
Price:  SOLD

Filed Under: Sorry, It's Sold
Tagged With: 1920s, Cosmopolitan Magazine, Golden Age, Herbert Morton Stoops, original illustration art, original interior illustration, Society Of Illustrators Hall Of Fame Honoree, western americana, Western Art
Added to Gallery: June 27, 2016

 

Contact Grapefruit Moon Gallery



    Primary Sidebar

    Join our mailing list

    Grapefruit Moon Gallery Around the Web

    Facebook
    Instagram
    Pinterest
    Twitter

    Recent Additions

    Gone With the Wind

    Pigeon Feathers

    Packed Dirt, Churchgoing, A Dying Cat, A Traded Car

    Footer

    About Grapefruit Moon Gallery

    Grapefruit Moon Gallery, based in Minneapolis MN, specializes in vintage pin up and original illustration art.  We are the proud home of the Bunny Yeager archives.

    Since 2003, Grapefruit Moon Gallery has been a leading dealer of exclusive original paintings by Gil Elvgren, Alberto Vargas, Earl Moran, Rolf Armstrong and Henry Clive, as well as vintage photographs, prints, and period decorative arts in ceramic and metal.

    All artworks featured are original, accurately represented, and guaranteed to be the work of the named artist.

    Interested buyers may view pieces by appointment and we are happy to answer any questions you may have. [Contact Us]

    Grapefruit Moon Gallery on eBay

     

    Grapefruit Moon Gallery on Instagram

    View on Instagram

    Copyright © 2023