Original Art from the Grand Age of American Illustration
Welcome to Grapefruit Moon Gallery. Here you will find an archived visual history of past sales. Pretty to look at, some are quite old; but when they're in here, consider them sold!
A beautiful and delicately rendered oil on canvas of a formal flapper girl in glamorous evening winter wear. An original oil on stretched canvas by the noted female artist and illustrator Edna Crompton. This was used as cover art for The Redbook Magazine February 1925. The artist also worked prolifically creating calendar art glamour images throughout the 1920s.
Artist: Edna Crompton
A colorful, bright and decorative art deco era original gouache illustration painting, created for print use by an as of yet unidentified fruit/produce company. A handsome shirtless native effortlessly navigates a tropical waterway in a fruit filled gondola. In style and execution, this work is reminiscent of many of the Travel Magazine covers commissioned for print use of the same era. Nicely matted and framed in an art deco period silver gesso handsome wood frame.
Artist: E. B. Segner
A stylish art deco era smartly rendered original gouache illustration painting created as Raleigh Cigarettes advertising. A flirty idealized modern couple spark up more than a conversation with a prominently featured cigarette. This work of some of the George Petty stylized advertising illustrations for “Acme Beer” and “Chesterfield Cigarettes” of the same era. Nicely matted and framed in an art deco period gesso handsome wood frame.
Artist: E. B. Segner
A lurid and gruesome large en grisaille style original oil on illustration board by noted 20th century artist and Illustrator Basil Gogos. An interior or perhaps cover illustration for a 1960s post-war pulp mens magazine published by Balcourt. This copy selling gruesome frontier style work pushes the envelope showing whisky bottle anesthetic self amputation by lantern light. Basil Gogos is currently featured in a long and detailed retrospective in Illustration Magazine. Nicely matted and framed and ready to hang.
Artist: Basil Gogos
A large and never-before-seen original pastel by Rolf Armstrong, this Green River Soda advertisement features a glamorous pin-up girl. This original pastel was found among other pastels and old lithographs in an abandoned Milwaukee, Wisconsin warehouse building. Decades earlier, the structure had served as headquarters for the “A. C. Schulz” lithography company. Although this piece is unsigned (this is true of much advertising art), it was undoubtedly created by the hand of Rolf Armstrong and is sold as an attributed painting.
Artist: Rolf Armstrong
A large and moody defining interior illustration for a mid 1950’s edition of Cosmopolitan Magazine by Alexander Sharpe Ross, titled A Weeping Violet. Ross was a leading American illustrator in the 1940s and 50s, with work featured on the covers of Good Housekeeping, The Saturday Evening Post, Ladies Home Journal and Colliers. Along with a handful of key illustrators — Coby Whitmore, John Whitcomb, Al Parker and Norman Rockwell — Ross helped create an indelible image of Americans in the post WWII decades.
Artist: Alex Ross
An alarmingly beautiful and decorative work by the undisputed king of illustration art Alberto Vargas / Varga. This is a large early (pre Esquire Magazine) pastel by this Peruvian born master. This art deco era original glamour pin-up pastel was used as calendar art in 1935 by The Joseph Hoover & Sons Calendar Company under the title Summertime. In pristine untouched original condition. An original salesman sample copy of the original published calendar print is included with sale.
Artist: Alberto Vargas
A large and bold, early 20th century patriotic German David and Goliath scene, by one of the defining “official” painters of the German empire and later, the Third Reich. This classically styled, expertly rendered scene features a highly eroticized nude David standing strong against the imposing Goliath force. This deeply allegorical mythical painting pronounces the vitality and virility of the German nation, a theme which dominated Nationalist German art throughout the late 19th and early 20th century, even as more abstract movements like German Sucessionism and the Jugendstihl gained prominence internationally.
Artist: Arthur Kampf
A skillfully executed, sexy and coyly posed nude interior scene. This lovely piece is a large oil on canvas by the painter and portraitist Frederick Elwood Wallace a very well listed Virginia artist (1893-1958). His portraiture is seen in numerous museums and government offices, and he is listed in Davenports, Who’s Who In American Art, The Artists Bluebook, and countless other art references. Work retains its original wood faux painted frame. A nice, fresh, new to the market Texas Estate find.
Artist: Frederick Wallace
This stylized pastel portrait of a dashing high society fashionable blonde with bright red lips is bright, colorful, fresh and new to the market. The 1930s era portrait was most likely used for print ads for a beauty product in American glamour magazines. A large seductive example of Rolf Amstrong’s unsurpassed pastel work. A winsome idealized vision of American feminine beauty by The Father Of American Pin-up.
Artist: Rolf Armstrong
