Original Art from the Grand Age of American Illustration
Risqué and fetching maidens have always been popular artistic subjects and the perfect vehicle to advertise just about any product, add allure to any magazine, or brighten any calendar. In the 1930s, Rolf Armstrong and Billy Devorss’s Art Deco sophisticates were everyone’s dream girl. During World War II, George Petty and Alberto Vargas created patriotic lithe modernist heartbreakers for the pages of Esquire Magazine to keep servicemen company, and soon there was a calendar girl for every taste--whether you preferred the girl next door or the one from the wrong side of the tracks. In post-war America, the youthful spirit personified by Earl Moran’s cheesecake depictions of Marilyn Monroe reigned, and pin up and glamour art remained unflaggingly popular. Today, original pin up and glamour art is more coveted by collectors than ever, and its influence on contemporary fashion, art, and culture is everywhere.
A large original commissioned pin-up genre pastel on illustration board by Knute O. Munson for a 1952 Brown & Bigelow Calendar titled Our Knowledge and Experience At Your Command. This was given to a store owner in Tulsa Oklahoma decades earlier by the regional Brown & Biglelow salesman there as a reward for advertising with his company. It is cleverly signed lower left on the spine of one of the books.
Artist: K. O. Munson
A large original commissioned pin-up genre pastel on illustration board by Knute O. Munson for a 1949 Brown & Bigelow Calendar titled Top Service Is Delivered. This was given to a store owner in Tulsa Oklahoma decades earlier by the regional Brown & Biglelow salesman there as a reward for advertising with his company. It is cleverly signed on the falling package by the artist.
Artist: K. O. Munson
scarce surviving original Indian Maiden themed mixed media work by L. Goddard. Used as a published calendar by The Thomas D. Murphy Calendar Company, Red Oak Iowa in the early 1920’s with the title Minnehaha, Laughing Water. In original ornate incredible gesso frame. Comes with a dated 1926 sample calendar featuring the published artwork.
Artist: L. Goddard
A rare and outstanding situational pin-up painting used as calendar art for The Louis F. Dow Calendar Co., circa 1940’s- 50’s. Image is playfully titled Snowshoes it also appeared as a calendar print titled Alask-Ann. This was purchased by a gentleman the day he got back from the Viet Nam War in the early 1970’s. The Dow Calendar Company rented a downtown Saint Paul hotel and sold off their paintings and original calendar art at $50.00 a painting! This is a major find and has never been on the market since it was purchased thirty years ago. He created the “Wonder Bread Girl” in the 1950’s using his daughter Nancy as his model. His portrait of President Dwight D. Eisenhower is in the Smithsonian institution in Washington D.C.
Artist: Vaughan Bass
This is the first of two provocative, cheeky, and sexy large nude original pin-ups we are offering by the classic American illustrator Ren Wicks. Wicks, a pin-up artist who was frequently commissioned to create advertising art for aviation and wartime industries, has been called the master of “wings and women.” This large and lovely gouache on illustration board features the infamous sharpshooter Annie Oakley re-imagined as a voluptuous reclining beauty. This painting is perfect in theme and scale for a tavern, pool room, or den.
Artist: Ren Wicks
This is the second of two provocative, cheeky, and sexy large nude original pin-ups we are offering by the classic American illustrator Ren Wicks from his Famous And Infamous Ladies Of The Old West, commissioned by Harolds Club Casino, in Reno Nevada. Wicks, a popular pin-up artist who was frequently commissioned to create advertising art for aviation and wartime industries, has been called the master of “wings and women.” This large and lovely gouache on illustration board features the infamous Lola Montez, creator of the Tarantula Dance, and the phrase “whatever Lola wants Lola gets.”
Artist: Ren Wicks
I am pleased to offer a wonderfully executed original pastel by Rolf Armstrong that was used as a College Humor Magazine cover (February 1933) and also as a pair of Brown & Bigelow calendar prints titled Lets Go Places and a cropped “head only” version titled Florence published a few years later in 1937. A skillfully executed and elaborately detailed (and large for the artist) pastel of a sassy, beret-wearing blonde and her Scottish terrier. Classic good girl imagery by the father of American Pin-up.
Artist: Rolf Armstrong
A rare and outstanding situational pin-up painting used as calendar art for The Louis F. Dow Calendar Co., circa 1950. Image is playfully titled A Double Catch. This was purchased by a gentleman the day he got back from the Viet Nam War in the early 1970’s. The Dow Calendar Company rented a downtown Saint Paul hotel and sold off their paintings and original calendar art at $50.00 a painting! This is a major find and has never been on the market since it was purchased thirty years ago. Great composition and outdoors man-themed, fly fishing/rainbow trout scene in perfect flawless condition as seen.
Artist: Vaughan Bass
Rare surviving original illustration art for Rogue for Men Magazine. A lurid genre defining cover by Lloyd Rognan for an April 1956 edition . Rognan had a long and prolific career as an illustrator, he studied with an early WPA art student project, contributed regularily for Stars and Stripes. Later his science fiction pulp artwork appeared as covers for such publications as Fate, Imagination, ImaginativeTales, and other sci fi pulp magazines exploiting the “pre-Apollo” moon mission space travel craze. This is a particularily rich interpretation of a Men’s magazine cover, and finally someone had the nerve to portray things as seen here.
Artist: Lloyd Rognan
An original World War II era pin-up illustration featuring a Marlene Dietrich – esque lovelorn pin-up admiring her 2 enlisted men presumably stationed in Europe ” over there ” as it were… Classic bad girl campy imagery which was used as art for a Mennon gift box for Men lithographed box for the set which is included in the sale. Signed Bischoff on the box (only, not on gouache artwork itself). This is by Herman E. Bischoff an illustrator that worked for Esquire Magazine and created covers for Liberty magazine during the 1940s – 50s.
Artist: Herman Bischoff
