Original Art from the Grand Age of American Illustration
An under-dressed, red-headed, blue-eyed breezy co-ed sweater girl with legs for miles catches up on some reading at the library in this original calendar pin-up painting by Edward D’Ancona. Published in 1954 as a hanging pin-up calendar (Clarion Intaglio Hanger – No. 11306), this appeared with the clever double entendre title Well Red. The painting is in a […]
Artist: Edward D'Ancona
Large, dramatically lit, and alluring, this gouache on illustration board painting by Howard Purcell was created as cover art in 1953 for the digest novel Wild Body by Manning Clay, which told “the intimate story of a modern Salome–who tried to shed the seventh veil.” The scene shows Valerie, a pretty albeit tired burlesque dancer between shows, […]
Artist: Howard Purcell
Eugene Savage created this as a preliminary study for the epic murals that grace the Grand Reception Hall of the Elks Veterans Memorial in Chicago, IL.
Artist: Eugene Savage
This lurid and bold gouache illustration painting by Fred Rodewald was created as cover art for the January, 1949 edition of Ecstasy Novel Magazine, which printed in full the novella length story “Paula Has A Price!” by pulp author Peggy Gaddis (writing under the pseudonym Perry Lindsay). Included with the painting is a published high grade edition of […]
Artist: Fred Rodewald
Promising a gritty look at life for the growing number of Americans who were moving to mobile homes throughout the 1950s, the 1960 Beacon Books title Trailer Camp Woman by Doug Duperrault is a prime example of the kind of fine line between truth and tittilation sleaze that pulp paperback publishers monetized in during the post-war era. […]
Artist: American Artist
Gene Szafran created this psychedelic painting for the cover of Hermaphrodeity – An Autobiography Of A Poet, by Alan Friedman.
Artist: Gene Szafran
This complex, detailed, and eerie surreal painting by Dean Ellis was created as cover art for Red Tide by D.D. Chapman & Delores Lehman Tarzan (Ace Science Fiction Special #2). The painting shows a mutated reptilian scientist who is one of the last humans surviving in a dystopian underwater near-future. Post-apocalyptic scenarios where humans struggled to adapt to […]
Artist: Dean Ellis
This original painting by John Hilkert, which appeared as the cover of the Canadian edition of 10-Story Detective Magazine in January 1943, provides an intriguing window into little known moment in pulp art history.
Artist: John Hilkert
This illustration artwork by Raymond Bayless shows an underwater space station with glowing jellyfish and Atlantis-like lost underground city.
Artist: Raymond Bayless
Early pin-up pastel illustration by Earl Moran, created for Brown & Bigelow and used in a 1930s Richlube Motor Oil advertising calendar.
Artist: Earl Moran
