Original Art from the Grand Age of American Illustration
At the turn of the 20th century, Industrial Revolution inventions brought technological advancements to printmaking that ushered in a Golden Age of American illustration. Publishers and calendar companies developed new techniques for producing multi-color offset lithographs that were fast, affordable, and flat-out glorious to view, blurring the distinction between fine art and "art for commerce." The best examples by the finest commercial illustrators were revered by the public, and today are beloved by collectors.
This original oil on canvas painting, used as the cover for the January 1955 pulp digest, Imaginative Tales #3, shows a Vaudeville era magician and his pin-up girl assistant working a crowd and casting spells and presumably making things disappear. This was created to illustrate the interior story by Robert Bloch, titled Black Magic Holiday, […]
Artist: Harold McCauley
With cool blue undertones and moody, dramatic shadowing, this published oil on canvas interior illustration is a departure for artist Benton Henderson Clark who primarily created warm & vibrant narrative frontier and western scenes. Accompanying an interior story for Cosmopolitan magazine titled “The King’s Son”, a handsome and sharply dressed prince smokes a cigarette during […]
Artist: Benton Henderson Clark
American illustrator Charles Bosseron Chambers created this large majestic portrait of Escamillo from the opera Carmen in the early 20th century.
Artist: Charles Bosseron Chambers
Grapefruit Moon Gallery just unearthed a small collection of original Campbell’s Soup Kids illustrations. These appeared as print ads in countless American mainstream publications such as The Saturday Evening Post in the 1930s. In this offering a Dolly Dingle-type character Campbell’s Soup Kid doubles as a railroad flagbearer with lantern ablaze attesting to the importance of the railroad in 20th century American history. Verso is stamped with a usage print date of 10/11/33. Painting is nicely matted and framed behind glass and ready to hang.
Artist: School of Grace Drayton
One of the earliest existing examples of Erté’s Art Deco cover illustrations for Harper’s Bazar, this gouache painting appeared in November 1918 under the title Les Bulles de Savon. The image showcases two chic Parisian ladies, icons of the new modernist turn, blowing bubbles in which are seen a parade of Edwardian and Art Nouveau fashions. A whimsical yet […]
Artist: Erté
Erté, often called the father of Art Deco, described the style as “the confluence of Cubism and Art Nouveau.” Nowhere is that combination more clearly seen than in this gouache on board illustration painting, which appeared as the October 1923 “Annual Fall Fashion” cover of Harper’s Bazar. In “Les Parfums” a dramatic figure, costumed in an […]
Artist: Erte
This important original gouache painting by Erté, the father of Art Deco, was created as a cover illustration for Harper’s Bazaar and was published in December 1932. Erté had a more than twenty year association with the magazine, and during that period created upwards of two hundred covers for the title, defining their sophisticated take on fashion and high […]
Artist: Erté
A luminious beautiful original published mixed medium calendar illustration which appeared with the title Evening Reveries in the 1921 “Indian Maids” calendar line, for Gerlach-Barklow of Joliet Illinois. This was created by James Arthur who worked in a style like that of of L. Goddard, where a base photograph was lavishly over-painted by the artist […]
Artist: James Arthur
A beautiful and delicately rendered oil on canvas painting of a pensive lovelorn flapper girl in pearls which appeared as cover art for The Redbook Magazine, September, 1927. A lovely golden age of illustration published example by the noted female artist and illustrator Edna Crompton. The artist worked prolifically creating calendar art glamour images for […]
Artist: Edna Crompton
A handsome interior illustration by the Austrian-born female artist and illustrator Tracy Porter Rudd, which appeared as a bookplate with the title “But still I love to think in some Dream-Aiden She wanders…”, for the poem “Pearls” in The Ring of Love and Other Poems by Brookes More, Boston: Cornhill Publishing, (1923). The artist settled […]
Artist: Tracy Porter Rudd
