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!
Tom Lovell created this colorful and expertly rendered painting to illustrate “Son of The Coach” an interior story for the October 14, 1950 issue of Collier’s Magazine. A copy of the magazine is included in the sale. The scene captures a brunette co-ed turning away in sadness from the ongoing marching band celebration in the background, as the son of […]
Artist: Tom Lovell
This voluptuous dreamy risqué redhead was created as calendar pin up art for the Goes Litho Company by the prolific and talented female Chicago area illustrator Pearl Frush. A red headed femme-fatale, loosely styled after Jean Harlow from her starring turn in the 1932 film Red Headed Woman, appears in a floppy wide brimmed straw hat with […]
Artist: Pearl Frush
On offer is a classic cheesecake pin up painting featuring a decidedly sexy bed-headed platinum blonde ala Marilyn Monroe by the prolific American pin-up artist Bill Randall. Bill Randall is best remembered for his wildly popular spiral bound “Randall’s Date Book” 12 page calendars for The Kemper-Thomas Calendar Company. He also created a series of works in […]
Artist: Bill Randall
This striking and vibrantly colored oil on canvas pin-up painting by Art Frahm features a gorgeous redheaded nude draped in a lavender shawl. She delicately removes one of her high-heeled shoes while seated on a green fringed hassock. Her fair skin, red hair, rosy cheeks, and red lips are in beautiful contrast to […]
Artist: Art Frahm
A wonderful and rare surviving original watercolor and graphite illustration by the legendary Art Nouveau artist Raphael Kirchner. The image shows a sexually provocative “Kirchner Girl” in rolled silk stockings, seductively grilling the many hearts she has stolen. This appeared in print in La Vie Parisienne with the German language quip “Können Diese Herzen Warm Genug Sein?”, which translates loosely to “Are […]
Artist: Raphael Kirchner
This technically dazzling painting by the French-American artist, muralist, and illustrator Andre Durenceau shows a colorful art deco landscape conceived in the manner of Rockwell Kent, with a lake in the foreground and an oversized flying fish adding the surreal touch for which the artist was known to the scene. This gouache on canvas is signed lower right and […]
Artist: Andre Durenceau
For nearly three decades the inimitable Enoch Bolles was the sole cover artist for Film Fun magazine, creating larger than life and uniquely erotic pin up creations that bridged the gap between the traditional calendar girl and pulp magazine femme-fatales. In this example, which graced the cover of the June 1940 issue, a streamlined […]
Artist: Enoch Bolles
This remarkable art deco Orientalist scene by the American illustrator and cartoonist Frank Godwin, depicts the interior story “Ali Baba And The Forty Thieves”, from the 1920 children’s book Stories The Sandman Told, a complete copy of which is included in the sale. Pictured in this gouache on board painting, is Morgiana, a slave girl who is pouring […]
Artist: Frank Godwin
This woman in peril, menace themed proposed spicy pulp oil painting by the American illustrator William Soare is a lurid and provocative example of the damsel in distress imagery which proliferated newsstands in the 1930s. To the best of our research, this pulp cover illustration appears to have never been published, which sometimes happened when the fly-by-night titles that commissioned these spicy […]
Artist: William Soare
This refined pastel portrait of film legend Mary Astor by the American illustrator Rolf Armstrong dates to 1933, during the artist’s brief tenure as a Hollywood portraitist. The elegant and understated large format artwork reflects Armstrong’s desire to move away from the rigid demands and deadline driven style of his in demand career as America’s leading calendar artist. In 1931, Armstrong moved from New York to the West coast and started an independent fine art company “Armstrong Art Services.”
Artist: Rolf Armstrong
