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Grapefruit Moon Gallery

Original Art from the Grand Age of American Illustration

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Illustration & Advertising Art

A Smiling Norma Shearer

Artist:James Lunnon
Date:1930s
Medium:Oil On Stretched Canvas
Dimensions:14" X 17" Canvas Size - 9 1/2" X 12 1/2" painted image
Condition:Excellent Restored Condition - with printers notes in margins
Original Use:Cover art for Movies Magazine, September 1935
Detail
The artist’s signature lower right

Pulp illustrator James Lunnon created this oil on canvas painting of Norma Shearer for the September 1935 issue of Movies Magazine. The hair and styling seem to date this to the mid 1930s-the height of Shearer’s renown as the Queen of MGM, a title bestowed upon her in 1927 when she married Irving Thalberg. Unusually though, this shows Shearer wearing a ring other than the notorious marquise-cut diamond engagement ring Thalberg presented to the starlet, which makes us suspect the source image showed Shearer in a costume of some sort.  With original notations and sizing instruction specifications over the painted margins.

Full view
Verso view of back canvas on original pine stretchers

A Smiling Norma Shearer

Artist: James Lunnon

Filed Under: Illustration & Advertising Art, Sorry, It's Sold
Tagged With: 1920s, american, art deco, Golden Age, hollywood, illustration, Irving Thalberg, James Lunnon, jazz age, magazine cover, Norma Shearer, portrait, pulp
Added to Gallery: July 2, 2017

 

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