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Grapefruit Moon Gallery

Original Art from the Grand Age of American Illustration

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Pin-Up & Glamour Art

The Purple Orchid

Artist:Edward Runci
Date:1950s
Medium:Oil on Stretched Canvas
Dimensions:Sight Size 22" x 28" Framed 23 1/2" x 29 1/2"
Condition:Excellent
Original Use:Pin Up Art for Calendar Usage
Above: Detail of radiant glamour girl
Above: The artist’s signature
Above: Detail

A luminous and glowing, glamour girl painting by the well-listed, prolific pin-up illustrator and Hollywood portrait artist Edward Runci. This fine oil on canvas features a Haddon Sundblom / Gil Elvgren inspired color palette and painterly technique. A formally posed beauty queen with a little bit of mischief in her eyes, in white gloves and fur wrap with a purple orchid from an admirer.

Above: Framed in simple gallery frame
Above: Verso view of original pine stretchers and canvas

Edward Runci was a Sicilian-born painter who moved to the United States in the 1930s. Runci’s career took off after World War II and he was well known for his paintings of Calendar Girl pin-ups. His images were used as advertisements for companies such as Coca-Cola, and Nesbitt’s Soda. Although most known for his paintings of women, Runci also painted clowns, landscapes and was a portraitist for the Hollywood elite. Runci spent his last decades in Big Bear Lake, CA where he had a studio and art school.

The Purple Orchid

Artist: Edward Runci

Filed Under: Pin-Up & Glamour Art, Sorry, It's Sold
Tagged With: 1950s, american, Edward Runci, flowers, glamour, opera gloves, orchid, original calendar art, pin up
Added to Gallery: November 9, 2010

 

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