Original Art from the Grand Age of American Illustration
We are pleased to offer this stunning pastel from 1920 by Arthur Spear Prince. A moving and evocotive fantastical work which served as a study for the larger exhibited oil painting titled “Wings of The Morning”. Labeled on verso and marked “Fenway Studios Boston.” This is framed and matted in a beautiful American Arts & Crafts aesthetic period gesso frame. Work is dated and signed lower right.
Artist: Arthur Prince Spear
A rare surviving original oil on canvas by the talented cover artist Harold or H.W. McCauley (1913-1977), who specialized in science fiction genre work. Exploring fantasy, adventure and space travel themes while maintaining a keen eye for the feminine guiles and allure of the pin-up girl, McCauley was a frequent cover illustrator for Fantastic Adventures between 1939 – 1942. He later illustrated covers for Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy.This work was first used as a cover in the underground 1947 Shaver Mystery Magazine, a fanatically coveted black & white sci-fi pulp devoted to the fantasies and cosmologies of writer/artist Dick Shaver.
Artist: Harold McCauley
Grapefruit Moon Gallery is proud to offer several scarce original paintings from the American Illustrator Charles Bosseron Chambers, including this large, dazzling, and spiritually evocative work titled Guardian Angel and Boy. Compositionally, this is a complex, stark, and questioning work. Thematically, the young boy–holding a model airplane–represents the machine age and ongoing industrialization. The angel is shown in a soft focused diffused and ethereal otherwordly world, while the boy is almost photo-realist in appearance. Their interaction calls into question the relationship between modernity and spirituality. Oil is titled on verso and framed in a wonderful carved gold gesso frame.
Artist: Charles Bosseron Chambers
Grapefruit Moon Gallery is proud to offer the second of several original John Louis Rhead Art Nouveau/Belle Epoque-era illustrations only recently acquired from a New York estate. This large Thanksgiving Harvest goddess colorful and stylized image is titled November in pencil by the artist on the lower margin. The work is matted and framed in a large period gesso frame. This is an astonishing and rare surviving document from this American poster master. Rhead’s work appeared alongside Alphonse Mucha, Jules Cheret and Toulouse Latrec pieces in Les Maîtres de l’Affiche (Masters of Posters) folios at the turn of the last century.
Artist: Louis Rhead
Fresh from a New York estate, Grapefruitmoongallery is proud to offer the first of several original John Louis Rhead Art Nouveau/Belle Epoque-era illustrations. This large harvest goddess image was exhibited at The Twenty-First Annual Exhibition Architectural League of New York 1900. The work is matted and framed in a large period gesso frame. An astonishing and rare surviving document from this American poster master. Rhead’s work appeared alongside Alphonse Mucha, Jules Cheret and Toulouse Latrec pieces in “Les Maîtres de l’Affiche” (Masters of Posters) folios at the turn of the last century.
Artist: Louis Rhead
This is a suggestive and subtle 1929 oil on canvas painting featuring a pierrot and ballerina in a quiet ‘behind the curtain’ circus moment. This large scale stylized art deco work is mournful and gay all at once, evoking all of the tensions of jazz age culture. Italian-born Alphonse Palumbo studied in New York at the Art Students League under Louis Mora and Frank DuMond. He exhibited at the Allied Artists of America, the National Academy of Design and the Society of Independent Artists.
Artist: Alphonse Palumbo
Perhaps the finest Rolf Armstrong original pastel ever offered for sale and one of only a hand full of nudes done by this iconic American illustrator. This original pastel was one of three nudes Armstrong did in the 1930’s. It was marketed as a calendar print titled, “Rosalie” as well as “Hollywood Venus”. This large, reclining nude was clearly a personal favorite of Armstrong’s. It hung on his studio walls throughout the 1940’s and 1950’s. This is a large and monumental art deco masterwork by the Father of the American Pin-Up. With an expensive gallery frame, this pastel is in pristine condition with unfaded vibrant colors.
Artist: Rolf Armstrong
A rare surviving original cover illustration for Rogue For Men magazine by Lloyd Rognan for the premiere edition, a December 1955 Volume #1, Edition #1. This is a particularily rich interpretation of a Men’s magazine cover , and illustrates the interior story on page 9 of included published issue of Rogue For Men magazine, story is titled Gentlemen for Rent by Ted Peckham . Rogue was published from December 1955 – December 1967 by Greenleaf publishing and was a direct competitor with Playboy Magazine.
Artist: Lloyd Rognan
This large, innovative and sophisticatedly composed gouache by Alexander Sharpe Ross was created as an interior illustration for the April 1949 Cosmopolitan Magazine story The Small Vice of Alicia Crispin by Cynthia Hathaway. Ross was a leading American illustrator of the time and worked as cover artist for Good Housekeeping, The Saturday Evening Post, Ladies Home Journal and Colliers. Along with a handful of key illustrators—Coby Whitmore, John Whitcomb, Al Parker, Norman Rockwell—Ross helped create an indelible image of Americans in the post WWII decades.
Artist: Alex Ross
This whimsical and humorous fishing scene was created in 1964 as advertising art celebrating 100 years of Hauenstein beer. A remarkably colorful and well rendered oil-on-board featuring a rural Americana scene of the sort popularized by Norman Rockwell. This is a rare surviving original Breweriana advertising illustration by Gale Hendrickson, who enjoyed a long and prolific career as commercial illustrator at Brown and Bigelow, working in a style inspired by the artistic visions of friend and fellow B&B illustrator Bill Medcalf. Comes in fine rustic gallery frame.
Artist: Gale Hendrickson
