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Grapefruit Moon Gallery

Original Art from the Grand Age of American Illustration

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Fine & Decorative Art

Mechanical Bird and Nude

Artist:Mahlon Blaine
Date:1939
Medium:Goauche on Illustration Board
Dimensions:Sight Size 15 1/2" x 16" Framed 23 1/4" x 24"
Condition:Mint
Original Use:Mural design for Paul MacAlister
Price:$6,500.00  $4,550.00
Full view of gouache painting
Artist’s signature Initial of “G” for Christopher Hudson
Detail

In the late 1930s, avant-garde illustrator Mahlon Blaine, working under the pseudonym G. Christopher Hudson created a series of illustrations which were intended to become murals for the studio or showroom of noted New York City interior designer Paul MacAlister. Offering a dark and pessimistically erotic commentary on the skyscraper landscape that was taking over Manhattan, it’s unclear if Blaine and MacAlister believed these murals would ever be approved, or if the preliminary artworks were exclusively created as an oblique social satire. Blaine treated each individual painting in the series as its own completed stand alone artwork, with painstaking detail and inspired yet terrifying imagery. It’s unlikely Blaine or MacAlister ever truly expected the murals to be completed, they never were, and by 1940 the following year Blaine was under psychiatric care and dropped completely out of the public eye for the better part of the decade. We are offering the complete series of ten original concept paintings, each an impressionistic story of a nude underworld goddess engaged in the horrific industry of the machine age.

In this work, the second of the series, a mechanical bird menaces the Medusa-inspired nude goddess who cowers atop a stone robot in a patriotic American apple pie infused red, white, and blue color palette. Marked on verso design #2, beautifully matted and framed from the estate of Paul MacAlister.

Detail
Framed and double matted behind glass in handsome gallery frame
Frame corner profile
Detail

In the late 1930s, Blaine began work of one of his most ambitious projects (or did one of his most ambitious projects begin work on him?) With the noted interior designer Paul MacAlister, Blaine created a series of (never executed in full scale) mural studies for a proposed New York City showroom MacAlister was working on. Featuring haunting and surreal takes on the hypersexualized and industrialized culture of modernist Manhattan, the images feature giantesses in coitus with skyscrapers, and nudes on “gadgets” that seemingly demonize the ongoing machine age and warn of the perils of an industrialized modernist society. Haunted by his own demons, Blaine spent the early 1940s under the psychiatric care of Greystone Hospital’s Dr. Archie Crandall. This period marks the only known break in Blaine’s working life. After ironically completing illustrations for a reissue of E. Thelmar’s 1909 autobiography of madness The Maniac in 1940, Blaine slipped out of public view, before returning to the New York art scene in the 1950s.

These are some of the most detailed and colorful works that have emerged by the artist to date. Though, it’s hard to imagine that even Blaine could foresee these images becoming part of the midtown Manhattan cityscape, the project gained at least some traction, and MacAlister created a 1:12 scale miniature room with his rough tempura sketches of the Blaine’s proposed murals featured in diorama.

Miniature room created by Paul MacAllister with rough sketches of Blaine mural works

Please visit our gallery for other examples which comprise the entire collection of the ten proposed works.

Mechanical Bird and Nude

Artist: Mahlon Blaine
Price: $6,500.00  $4,550.00

Filed Under: Fine & Decorative Art
Tagged With: 1930s, american, avant-garde, erotic, illustration, industrial age, machine age, Mahlon Blaine, modernism, mural, muralist, new york city, nude, Paul MacAlister, robot, WPA
Added to Gallery: May 11, 2016

 

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    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]

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