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 remarkable and early oil on illustration board painting by the well listed east coast artist Charles Fracé, likely created in the 1950s as a paperback book cover. A desperate, love-struck couple steal an impassioned last moment together as a blizzard rages around them in this tense dramatic and inventive early offering. This is unsigned […]
Artist: Charles Fracé
This interior genre scene features an exotic Edwardian Spanish Senorita in traditional garb posing seductively as she coyly holds a fan. An original oil on canvas by the well listed artist Alonzo Kimball, who studied in Paris during the 1890s at Académie Julian and later at The Art Students League of New York. The artist is best remembered for the covers he painted for The Saturday Evening Post.
Artist: Alonzo Kimball
This 1949 Brown & Bigelow Calendar Company commissioned pin-up pastel is one of the finest examples by Earl Moran we have encountered. A redheaded heart-breaker on a then state of the art mid-century modern phone asks the viewer and the caller to “Remember Me?” in a classic pin-up entanglement loaded with double entendre. Earl Moran was a master of light and shadow and this large and commanding artwork is a monument to his talent.
Artist: Earl Moran
This 1948 Brown & Bigelow Calendar Company commissioned pastel by Earl Moran is a large and defining example of American pin up. A pretty blonde pin-up girl is posed on a mid-century modern Heywood Wakefield office desk with a phone in one hand. The title “Call Again” is a witty take on an office secretary and her private hours. Condition is pristine in a custom made lined gallery frame with fitted corners behind ultraviolet glass. A 1948 Brown & Bigelow advertising calendar of the image is included with sale.
Artist: Earl Moran
This delicately rendered, original, signed Pearl Frush pin-up illustration was published by the Gerlach-Barklow Calendar Company under the title “Miss Bermuda.” The nearly photo-realist watercolor appeared as part of a 1947 “Aqua Tour” series of bathing beauty images. Pearl Frush was a prolific and talented female artist who was active during the 1940s and 50s and worked […]
Artist: Pearl Frush
The Louis F. Dow Calendar Company of Saint Paul, Minnesota commissioned this pristine and rare surviving pin-up painting by Art Frahm for publication in their 1944 calendar line under the title “Pay Off.” The image shows an underdressed, impish redhead having an “oops” moment as she is drenched by the puppy she has just so carefully bathed. This painting is […]
Artist: Art Frahm
A lurid, true crime themed, spicy pulp cover pin-up painting by George Gross featuring a bathing beauty, gun toting moll as “The Daughter of Satan,” for the March, 1948 pulp digest title Women in Crime which purported to have stories based on True Fact Detective Cases. The tagline on the cover reads “Some Women Love To […]
Artist: George Gross
Fred Rodewald created this classic and exciting 1940s pulp cover painting for an as of yet unidentified Thrilling Publications Western title. The image shows a handsome cowboy returning gunfire while precariously perched on a fallen log, protecting the requisite damsel in distress. The scene is filled with tension, romance, and danger, a combination which American […]
Artist: Fred Rodewald
This exciting Western pulp oil on stretched painting appeared was created as cover art for the fall 1942 issue of the Thrilling Publications Western title Exciting Western. The scene shows a handsome cowboy and smartly attired cowgirl returning fire on unseen villains in this tautly rendered, action packed, bright and bold image. Grapefruit Moon Gallery […]
Artist: Earle K. Bergey
This breezy sailor girl, bathing beauty pin-up graced the cover of the July 24, 1937 edition of Liberty magazine, a popular long running Bernarr MacFadden publication. By the artist R.C. Kauffmann–a personal favorite of the gallery–this is a tremendously spirited, large format oil painting with spectacular zest and allure. Kauffmann is best remembered for his Saturday Evening Post covers as […]
Artist: R.C. Kauffmann
