Illustration & Advertising Art

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.

From the estate of legendary jazz-age Ziegfeld Follies photographer Alfred Cheney Johnston comes this sensational pastel by noted American illustrator Penrhyn Stanlaws. Inscribed “To Cheney from Penrhyn Stanlaws”, this is a fabulous offering it features a stylish 1920s flapper girl in a cloche hat admiring her abundant beauty in a compact mirror. This was created as the cover for the October 4, 1924 issue of Collier’s magazine, and later inscribed and gifted to Johnston.

A Stylish Fadeaway Girl

Artist: Penrhyn Stanlaws

A rare surviving art deco gouache painting by one of our favorite American illustrators Edward Eggleston. This was created as the cover for a Valentines Day themed crafting magazine, Dennison’s Party Magazine,Jan/Feb 1928. Eggleston was a New York based calendar artist and illustrator who is best remembered today for his Jazz Age, racy and stylized 1920s Atlantic City travel posters that brought to light the allure of the flapper girl with risque bathing beauty imagery.

The Valentine Girl

Artist: Edward Eggleston

An early offering by legendary American pin-up artist and cover illustrator Peter Driben likely created in the late 1920s when the artist was a resident of Paris France and contributed popular illustrations in various French showgirl magazines chronicling the exciting Parisian nightlife and its lovely erotic burlesque Follies Dancers. Nicely matted and framed behind glass; from the famed collection of Charles Martignette.

Capturing The Moment

Artist: Peter Driben

A unique offering from the estate of Charles Martignette, the original Banshee’s club “Silver Lady” award presented to comic artist George McManus by Walt Disney himself on January 16th, 1952 at a Beverly Hills luncheon. This award statue was designed by another legendary illustrator, Willy Pogany and features a near nude pin-up girl with a quill pen and an elf and is silver-plated over cast bronze. This was purchased by us at the Charles Martignette estate auction in Delray Beach after the author’s untimely and sudden death in 2008.

Banshee’s Award, George McManus

Artist: Willy Pogany

A luminous and rare Golden Age of Illustration cover oil painting for the Saturday Evening Post, entitled “Graduate On Top Of the World”, by Edmund Davenport. This appeared as the cover the June 13, 1925 issue and is a fresh to the market work that finds the artist (who contributed three Post covers in 1925) painting in a Norman Rockwell like illustrative style. The unusual subject, that of a confident, young pretty, independent flapper on graduation day, and the scarcity of surviving Post covers from this era add to the already enormous appeal of this lovely and historic American illustration painting.

Graduate On Top Of The World

Artist: Edmund Davenport

An elementally beautiful nymph in the midst of metamorphosis rises from the churning sea in this mythic and beautiful 1907 oil on canvas by Paul Swan. This important early example from the artist, who was himself a social butterfly, features tremendous sophistication of technique, and combines the Art Nouveau style which was popular at the time with hints of the streamlined figural forms which would become synonymous with the art deco era.

Metamorphosis of Beauty

Artist: Paul Swan

A comical yet masterful charcoal illustration titled “The American Girl and Why” by gifted and prolific New York City illustrator James Montgomery Flagg. This bawdy nude was likely used to illustrate a 1930s edition of the Lamb’s Club Monthly Magazine. The Lamb’s Club was established in 1874 as America’s first professional theatrical club. Renowned artists such as James Montgomery Flagg, Howard Chandler Christy, Hubert Vos, Robert Reid, and Everett Raymond Kinstler created paintings for this fraternal group that fell into two general categories; the Shepherds’ (Presidents’) portraits, and the nudes.

The American Girl and Why

Artist: James Montgomery Flagg

A rare surviving cover painting for the long running Motor Magazine title which evolved alongside the car industry from the very early years of automobilia through the machine age of progress and invention. Robinson executed these light-hearted Americana views for this Hearst title from the 1920s through the 1950s, this work appeared as the cover for the September 1930 issue. Here, a hard working garage hand is shown using a different sort of elbow grease to pry loose a coin from a tightwad couple by explaining the workings of “Ellbo – A Super Automotive Polish”.

A Little Elbow Grease

Artist: Robert Robinson

Hidden within the lush romanticism of Nell Brinkley’s beautiful pen & ink comic illustration “Cupid Catching Butterflies” is a forward thinking depiction of the new flapper woman of the 1920s. In pearls and marcel wave, the bow-lipped brunette sits besides a winged cupid who is drawing heart shaped butterflies nearer and nearer to her net. The Brinkley girl, as these iconic idealized beauties came to be known, will have no trouble catching a beau in this scene.

Cupid Catching Butterflies

Artist: Nell Brinkley

Six Brinkley girls, each with distinct style and personality, are shown in a classroom, preparing to take their knowledge of the geography of beauty out into the wider world. A map, at the time, was slang for a beautiful face, and there is no question that these maps would lead to men’s hearts across the country. Created as a stand alone cartoon for an unidentified Hearst publication, this pen & ink on board illustration contains all the elements that made Nell Brinkley the pre-eminent female cartoonist of the early 20th century.

A Map of the Heart

Artist: Nell Brinkley

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