Grapefruit Moon Gallery

Original Art from the Grand Age of American Illustration

Fine & Decorative Art

Along with developments in lithography that led many leading talents of the day into careers as illustrators, the 20th century saw innovations in photography, printmaking, and design that revolutionized fine, public, and decorative art. Below, you will see showcased original artworks from the Art Nouveau, American Arts & Crafts, Art Deco, WPA-era and beyond.

This large, epically scaled, WPA-era beach scene is a wonderful fine art painting that takes the forms and themes of the regionalist art movement which was revolutionizing the American art scene in 1939 when this was created, and adapts them to the classic Connecticut shore. Recalling the work of Thomas Hart Benton, and George Bellows, this oil on board shows a group of friends looking on in a mix of shock and wonder at some roughhousing co-eds. Three men appear to have a bathing beauty and appear to be about to toss her into the ocean. Is it all in good fun, or is it something more sinister? By withholding the answer, the artwork takes the beach scene and gives it the provocative modernist spin and Ashcan School grittiness that defined art in the WPA regionalist era.

At The Beach

Artist: Alton Tobey

Grapefruit Moon Gallery is proud to offer a fine art nude oil painting by Pal Fried from the 1940s. This fresh estate find is titled on verso “Suzanne” and retains its handsome ornate gold painted gesso frame. A luminous example by this gifted and prolific Hungarian painter and illustrator.

Suzanne

Artist: Pal Fried

A rare surviving Edward Sheriff Curtis nude titled “Aphrodite”, (Spirit of the Sea)” circa 1920s, a blue-toned gelatin silver photograph. Signed with the Curtis LA copyright insignia in the negative on the image, accompanied by the original frame backing stamped Aphrodite, Curtis Studio, Los Angeles. One of 3 blue nudes Curtis did towards the end of his life and a coveted rare old original photograph. In a fine state of conservation with silvering in the emulsion along the photographs edges.

Aphrodite

Artist: Edward Curtis

A tremendous original late 1920s pen and ink drawing by Cardwell Higgins titled “A Delightful Page in the Record of My Existence”. The artist created five of these noir illustrative costumed art deco pen & ink drawings between the years of 1927 – 1929 that were later marketed as limited edition art prints under the guidance of Charles Martignette in 1979. This is assuredly the finest from this series of Aubrey Beardsley / Harry Clarke inspired fantasy scenes that the young Higgins executed. From the Estate of Charles Martignette, who championed the efforts of Cardwell Higgins and organized a one man show for the artist in 1983 shortly after the artist’s death in Hollywood Florida.

A Delightful Page…

Artist: Cardwell Higgins

A fresh to the market lovely portrait painting by Carle J. Blenner in its original to the work handsome American Arts & Crafts ornate gesso frame. This is a fine and untouched example of the artist’s preferred subject matter; female portraiture. This large oil painting finds a dazzling raven haired maiden admiring her beauty in a hand compact. Work retains its original Beard Art Gallery Minneapolis verso exhibit label and the frame is adorned with a period plaque with the artist’s name.

A Raven Haired Beauty

Artist: Carle Blenner

A large signed and dated 1917 oil on canvas by Margaret Lindsay Williams, the important Royal Academy award winning Welsh artist. Williams has the distinction of being the lone artist to have had a studio in Westminster Abbey. Along with her darkly beautiful fine art, she painted portraits of Queen Alexandria and The Prince of Wales. In 1922, amidst much hoopla, she was brought to the US to paint President Harding’s portrait. This remarkable large work bears its label from a 1917 London’s Royal Academy exhibition. This is an important large decorative dark masterwork from an artist of the utmost historical significance.

The Devil’s Daughter

Artist: Margaret Lindsay Williams

A dazzling art deco era original oil on canvas by noted New York Illustrator Walter Beach Humphrey. Humphrey did 3 covers for The Saturday Evening Post in 1923. He also was a frequent cover contributor for Colliers , Liberty and Argosy Magazines. He currently has works on display at the Norman Rockwell Museum in their Toast of the Town exhibit. The model was the artist’s wife Connie Regina. I am assuming this was painted as a decorative work as I cannot imagine a cover it could have been used for with the possible exception of a Burlesque or Follies Bergere type program cover.

Decorative Art Deco Nude

Artist: Walter Beach Humphrey

An unusual mid-century modern impressionist oil on canvas dated 1954 by well listed Minnesota painter and WPA muralist Dewey Albinson. A colorful view of a colorful space in the town Cocula, Jalisco, Mexico (where the artist lived for a time) titled The Yellow House. Painted in a dramatic and well realized impasto technique with wildly executed colors and a strong sense of composition and harmony. In original painted wide profile WPA aesthetic rough wood frame with exhibition tag on verso pine stretchers.

The Yellow House

Artist: Dewey Albinson

A poignant, large and decorative mural which reflects upon the devastation and loss caused by the Hartford, Connecticut floods of 1936. Workers from the Works Progress Administration (WPA) program provided flood relief, patrolling city streets, and rescuing Hartford residents in row boats. This large iconic artwork captures the Great Depression’s bleak urgency and despair in muted banal tones from within the temporary government shelter with newly widowed survivors and children reeling in the devastation.

After The Flood

Artist: Alton Tobey

 

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