• 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
Pin-Up & Glamour Art

An Orchid and a Smile

Artist:Rolf Armstrong
Date:1918-22
Medium:Pastel on Illustration Board Mounted on Canvas
Dimensions:Sight Size 15" x 25" Framed 26" x 36"
Condition:Excellent
Original Use:Illustration of Unknown Origin and Use
Above: Full view of pastel work

A delightful early Rolf Armstrong original pastel in which the artist employs an impressionist and modern technique for the shadowing and details. This is a lovely and unusual transition piece from the period in Armstrong’s career where he began to shift from depicting winsome art nouveau beauties to the more dramatic and angular art deco flapper girls which defined his career. We have yet to find a printed version of this stunning original artwork by the father of American pin-up.

Above: Properly lined and matted in contemporary frame

This pastel is stylistically similar to several covers Armstrong was commissioned to create for The Metropolitan and Stewart Lever publications in the late 1910s.

An Orchid and a Smile

Artist: Rolf Armstrong

Filed Under: Pin-Up & Glamour Art, Sorry, It's Sold
Tagged With: 1910s, 1920s, american, art deco, art nouveau, flapper, flowers, glamour, orchid, original illustration art, portrait, Rolf Armstrong
Added to Gallery: March 14, 2008

 

Contact Grapefruit Moon Gallery



    Primary Sidebar

    Join our mailing list

    Grapefruit Moon Gallery Around the Web

    • Facebook
    • Instagram

    Copyright © 2025