Original Art from the Grand Age of American Illustration
A spicy-pulp genre, risque, color pin-up illustration by Bob Holaday titled Yeh! Cancel Volume 3-4-5-6-7-8-9… This would appear to be an interior gag cartoon for a Titters or Eyeful type girly magazine, known for iconic cheesecake and military humor and pin-up nose-art images, and wildly popular from the 1930s Jazz Age through the post World War II era.
Artist: Bob Holaday
A beautiful and serene commissioned pastel portrait of the young, wealthy blue blood high society beauty N.H. Fill. American illustrators often subsidized their earnings by taking lucrative portrait commissions from wealthy New York City Industrial Revolution aristocratic patrons. Often these jobs found the artists depicting the heiresses as glamour girl beauties in stylized, iconic, modern fashion. Gifted artist and illustrator Haskell Coffin excelled at this sort of beauty, and was best known as a cover artist contributing covers for countless American magazines including The Saturday Evening Post. His wholesome American stylized beauties also graced many Calendars for The Thos D. Murphy Calendar Company and other early twentieth century companies.
Artist: Haskell Coffin
A large mid-1950’s calendar girl pin-up pastel that was commissioned by the Shaw-Barton Calendar Company for one of their wildly successful and genre changing “Sketchbook” style 12 page pin-up calendars. Knute “K.O.” Munson executed many pastels for the Brown & Bigelow Calendar Company during the 1940’s and then Shaw-Barton. He later went on to become a successful cheesecake pin-up photographer during illustration arts lean years of the 1960’s, a charmed life to be sure.
Artist: K. O. Munson
A defining patriotic themed large original pastel by the father of American Pin-up Rolf Armstrong created for the Brown & Bigelow Calendar company. A fetching bathing beauty with modern features and build strikes a celebratory pose in front of a red, white and blue beach umbrella in this World War II-era pin-up In The Pink. The model was Margery Crampton and the appeal of this bright large work is universal.
Artist: Rolf Armstrong
A fantastic WPA-themed interior illustration from the February 1931 issue of American Magazine. A Union president riles up a group of miners for an epic David versus Goliath style battle, from the seat of a stylish touring coupe. Herbert Paus was a gifted and prolific illustrator, known for his highly technical & visionary watercolor industrial illustrations. He designed World War One posters and illustrated numerous covers for Liberty, Popular Science, Life, Delineator, & Collier’s magazines. Like Edward Penfield, Paus was for many years an illustrator for Hart Shaffner and Marx clothiers. An enthusiastic modernist, he worked prolifically creating defining and iconic images of American industrialization. His commissions included Goodyear Tires and Willy’s Automobiles.
Artist: Herbert Paus
A bright, fresh and new to the market original pastel pin-up illustration by Earl Steffa Moran, comissioned for a late 1940s Brown & Bigelow calendar. A winsome young pretty idealized redhead in a Hawaiian flavored sarong. 2 small printed B & B marked calendars featuring “Feature Attraction” are included with sale. Pastel is properly lined and behind glass in a fine museum quality handsome gold gilt carved frame.
Artist: Earl Moran
A dark and eerily erotic oil on canvas nude with orientalist slant. The work has a verso dedication by the artist Fred Page Craft dated 1926. An exotic Moorish/East Indian Orientalist Princess depicted as a “spicy pulp” blood boiling enchantress. Craft worked as cover artist for pulp magazine Black Mask and contributed a cover for Country Gentleman in 1923. This appears to have been created as a cover for an as of yet identified spicy pulp publication. In the dedication, the artist says of the work “This little half cast might be the finest thing I shall ever paint.”
Artist: Fred Page Craft
A beautiful and delicately rendered oil on canvas of a formal flapper girl in glamorous evening winter wear. An original oil on stretched canvas by the noted female artist and illustrator Edna Crompton. This was used as cover art for The Redbook Magazine February 1925. The artist also worked prolifically creating calendar art glamour images throughout the 1920s.
Artist: Edna Crompton
A colorful, bright and decorative art deco era original gouache illustration painting, created for print use by an as of yet unidentified fruit/produce company. A handsome shirtless native effortlessly navigates a tropical waterway in a fruit filled gondola. In style and execution, this work is reminiscent of many of the Travel Magazine covers commissioned for print use of the same era. Nicely matted and framed in an art deco period silver gesso handsome wood frame.
Artist: E. B. Segner
A stylish art deco era smartly rendered original gouache illustration painting created as Raleigh Cigarettes advertising. A flirty idealized modern couple spark up more than a conversation with a prominently featured cigarette. This work of some of the George Petty stylized advertising illustrations for “Acme Beer” and “Chesterfield Cigarettes” of the same era. Nicely matted and framed in an art deco period gesso handsome wood frame.
Artist: E. B. Segner
