This illustration artwork by Raymond Bayless shows an underwater space station with glowing jellyfish and Atlantis-like lost underground city.
Artist: Raymond Bayless
Paperback & Pulp Art
Publishers of depression-era pulp magazines, post war men’s adventure and girlie magazines, and lurid paperback titles all used risqué, action-packed illustrations to make their offerings jump off the newsstands in the highly competitive market for readers attention. Cover art pushed the boundaries of what was allowable in a heavily-censored era, coming up with increasingly deviant and outlandish portrayals of sex, violence, and perilous escapes from danger. Today, these works—which provide an intriguing peek into the shadow side of 20th century American culture—are studied by historians and coveted by collectors.
Original 1954 paperback cover painting by Richard Cardiff, He Hanged Them High, about Wild West judge Isaac C. Parker. For sale at Grapefruit Moon Gallery.
Artist: Richard Cardiff
A subversive and suggestive gouache painting by Isabel Dawson which appeared as the cover of the Stallion Books paperback Trailer Camp Girl, a 1953 offering written by Doug Duperault. The text slugs reads : “They Called Her A Trailer Tramp – A Story of The Carefree Women Who Live – And Love – In Trailer Camps…” Painting has […]
Artist: Isabel Dawson
This small preliminary gouache painting on illustration board is by noted artist and illustrator Rafael Desoto. A red-lipped, blonde bad girl finds herself in the grip of a haunting, demon-like man who appears out of the flames behind her. In the 1950s DeSoto created many paperback book covers for such publishers as Ace, Bantam, […]
Artist: Rafael DeSoto
On offer is a remarkable published pulp cover painting by Lejaren Hiller (American, 1880-1969), titled Absinthe, for Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction Magazine – April 21, 1928. Between 1924 and 1939, the artist created hundreds of covers for this long running title, and this is among the most captivating. The image showcases an up-to-the-minute smoking flapper girl feeling strangely […]
Artist: Lejaren Hiller
Large and stark, this gouache on board artwork by an obscure pulp & science fiction illustrator using the name Ross appeared as the cover the the May 1959 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction illustrating a story titled “The Man Who Could Not Stop.” The story tells the tale of a […]
Artist: Ross
A ghastly and macabre pulp cover painting by Mel Hunter for the January, 1958 edition of Mercury Mystery Book-Magazine, this loosely illustrated a story by Floyd Mahannah titled The Broken Angel. A voluptuous redheaded vixen appears in a moodily conceived graveyard at night with an ominous figure in a top-hat looming near an […]
Artist: Mel Hunter
A lurid and outright creepy cover painting by Nicholas Solovioff for the August, 1955 edition of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, loosely illustrated the interior story Bride In Danger. A beautiful corpse, a once blushing bride on her honeymoon, is now found alone on a desolate beach, bloodied and left in the open […]
Artist: Nicholas Solovioff
A lurid watercolor painting on board by noted artist & illustrator Rafael DeSoto, this was a preliminary artwork for a completed cover for the February 1945 issue of Dime Detective Magazine. A sleepy winter town at night takes a menacing turn when a man going to post a letter meets a gruesome demise, left […]
Artist: Rafael DeSoto
This is a large format erotic pin-up calendar painting by the English illustrator Arnold Armitage. This was likely painted in about 1950 and appeared in calendars at that time with the title Studio Setting. This nude beauty proved too provocative for some markets, and the calendar company began issuing a version of this piece wherein the nudity […]
Artist: Arnold Armitage
