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!
This original fine art figure study by the pre-eminent pin up illustrator comes from a collection of Gil Elvgren preliminary graphite drawings that we acquired which were found in a house in Sarasota, Florida where the artist once lived. With restraint and a detailed eye towards anatomy, the artist captures a brunette with a contemplative pose, offering […]
Artist: Gil Elvgren
With psychedelic, folk art, and art nouveau inspired style, this fine art surreal nude by Ted Coconis captures a nude erotic goddess dancing above the clouds, surrounded by smaller figures that draw on iconography from a number of different cultures. The cherub and bear and foreshortened men who gloat behind her, all suggest something […]
Artist: Ted Coconis
Harold McCauley created this historical Revolutionary War image of a Minuteman using coded communication to alert the Colonial forces of British troop movement as cover art for the May/June 1975 issue of Signal magazine, the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association (AFCEA) trade publication. AFCEA is a non-profit group which emerged from the Signal Corp after World War II that serves the information […]
Artist: Harold McCauley
Using an inventive pointillism technique, Henry J. Soulen creates a moody and evocative artwork in an American impressionist style in this dramatic painting. This was likely featured as an interior illustration for The Saturday Evening Post. Known for his Orientalist exotic aesthetic, Soulen was an early student of Howard Pyle, he utilized a heavy expressive brush strokes and impasto oil paint technique. The scene features a masked bandit readying himself to duel for the honor of the lovely Edwardian attired maiden.
Artist: Henry Soulen
An inventive early offering by the noted industrial designer Paul Ritter MacAlister, who went on to be an interior designer especially noted for his mass-produced “Plan-a-Room” kit with scale furniture and room layouts that could be used to plan and organize home spaces for consumers. This is a very well executed work it is done in the style of Erte essentially and features an art deco nude goddess of the darkness cowering under the bright sunshine radiating from the corner of the canvas – superimposed with a pipe smoking skeleton in a trompe l’oeil “trick of the eye” manner.
Artist: Paul MacAlister
A remarkable, large, signed and dated 1929 oil painting by one of the leading “cabin art” calendar artists Frank Stick. Known best for his genre illustrations for the Thomas D. Murphy Calendar Company, Stick also worked for many early 20th century magazine titles including Collier’s, Sports Afield and The Saturday Evening Post creating rugged outdoorsman scenes culled from his own experiences. This is a unique offering by the artist, featuring a pretty Pre-Raphaelite Viking mother and her newborn child emerging from a long winter, a cherished example from the Charles Martignette collection.
Artist: Frank Stick
A whimsical and stylized rare original gouache painting on illustration board by Anne Harriet Sefton a.k.a. Fish; this was the cover for The April 1919 edition of Vanity Fair Magazine published by Conde Nast. Work is in the humorous yet refined swinging youth style that came to personify the art deco Jazz Age. Painting is silk matted and beautifully framed in a period antique gold gilt wood frame under glass.
Artist: Anne Harriet Fish
A streamlined and modernist look at the attractions and Futurama-inspired architecture that graced the 1939 – 1940 New York World’s Fair. This tremendous and bustling work is by the noted muralist, illustrator, and fine artist Andre Durenceau, who was hired with much fanfare to create murals for the Metals Building at this fair. […]
Artist: Andre Durenceau
This deliriously posed nude original artwork is by Earle K. Bergey and was created for a 1933 cover of La Paree Stories.
Artist: Earle K. Bergey
This remarkable, large, and colorful pastel by Billy Devorss was created for Brown & Bigelow’s 1941 calendar line and was published under the title Pretty Smooth. Unlike most of the pin-up artists working during the Golden Age of Illustration, Devorss never signed an exclusive contract with any of the calendar companies, and instead enjoyed incredible popularity […]
Artist: Billy Devorss
