Original Art from the Grand Age of American Illustration
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.
A jovial, large format oil painting by Harold H.W. McCauley which appeared as the May 1955 cover of Imaginative Tales, a Greenleaf Publishing title. The image is a whimsical self-portrait, the artist appears as the 1950s everyman enjoying a night on the town after a hard day’s work. His wife sits atop his shoulders–a classic “Mac girl” pin-up bombshell getting […]
Artist: Harold McCauley
An action packed 1965 oil and tempura painting by Harry Schaare, that appeared as the cover of the Pyramid paperback Harlem Underground written by the author known as Ed Lacy. Lacy was a pseudonym for Leonard S. Zinberg who explored themes of racial prejudices and injustices throughout his fiction. In this work, Lee Hayes, a rookie policeman with youthful looks and […]
Artist: Harry Schaare
An evocative pin-up girl pulp cover watercolor painting by Malcolm Smith for the May, 1953 issue of Fate Magazine – True Stories Of The Strange And The Unknown. This was created to illustrate the interior story “Do You Hear Colors?” On the printed cover there were black musical notes applied, (likely on a separate transparency […]
Artist: Malcolm Smith
In this large, dramatic and darkly twisted oil on canvas, Fred Pfeiffer perfectly captures the menace and seduction associated with the post-hippie /post Manson family druggie scene, as depicted in counter-culture books and films which proliferated in the 1970s. The work appeared as the cover for the 1975 Bantam paperback The Fear Dealers, written by Jack W. Thomas, who specialized in these […]
Artist: Fred Pfeiffer
This tawdry and seductive original artwork was illustrated for use as the cover of the 1951 Cameo Books title The Loves of Alice Brandt, part of the publisher’s “love fiction” line. Cameo was an imprint of Detective House Publishers in New York which was a major producer of digest sized pulp novels during the period when this first appeared […]
Artist: Unidentified American Illustrator
Grapefruit Moon Gallery is delighted to offer a fresh-to-the-market macabre oil on canvas pulp cover painting by Rafael DeSoto which appeared on the June, 1948 issue of Dime Mystery Magazine – The Magazine of Weird Mystery. The darkly dramatic scene shows a green skeleton in formal magician’s costume pulling a hot blonde number out of […]
Artist: Rafael Desoto
A large, dazzling, spicy pulp, science fiction, space girl painting by Gabriel Mayorga, which appeared on the cover of the second issue of Super Science Stories in May, 1940. Very loosely illustrating the interior story “Juice” by L. Sprague De Camp, whose slug is worth repeating here in full… They discovered a new game in Lunar Center – a form of ping-pong, […]
Artist: Gabriel Mayorga
Painter John Berkey was unquestionably one of the leading figures working during the golden era of science fiction. Most identified with his posters for the original Star Wars film, Berkey’s work was instrumental creating the image we have in our minds eye when we picture “outer space.” A prolific illustrator of sci-fi book covers, the technically adept artist also was employed […]
Artist: John Berkey
John Berkey is remembered today as one of the leading figures of the golden era of science fiction. Most identified with his posters for the original Star Wars film, Berkey was a technically brilliant commercial illustrator and his vision is what we see in our minds eye when we picture “outer space.” A prolific illustrator of […]
Artist: John Berkey
This shoot ’em up action packed Western Americana illustration titled The Rider From Rio appeared as the April 22, 1933 cover of Street & Smith’s – Wild West Weekly. By the prolific and gifted American painter, John Coughlin, this exciting old west scene exemplifies the fighting cowboy spirit that was essential to the Western pulps. A fresh to […]
Artist: John Coughlin
