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Grapefruit Moon Gallery

Original Art from the Grand Age of American Illustration

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Sorry, It's Sold

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!

The seventh of ten mural concepts by Mahlon Blaine for a New York City public space designed by noted industrial designer Paul Ritter MacAlister. This work is stylistically a departure, a cubist abstract half man/half woman nude that guards or invites one into a passageway in a color palette and modernist style suggestive of Picasso.

The Passage

Artist: Mahlon Blaine

Filed Under: Fine & Decorative Art, Sorry, It's Sold
Tagged With: 1930s, abstract, american, avant-garde, erotic, illustration, industrial age, machine age, Mahlon Blaine, modernism, mural, muralist, new york city, nude, Paul MacAlister, robot, WPA
Added to Gallery: May 21, 2016

The sixth of ten 1939 mural designs by Mahlon Blaine, which were intended to become murals for the studio or showroom of noted New York City industrial designer Paul MacAlister. A vacuum tube headed, praying mantis-like robot battles a cowering nude goddess in the ongoing saga of the menace of industry. Marked on verso design #6, this comes beautifully matted and framed from the estate of Paul Ritter MacAlister.

Cowering Nude With Robot

Artist: Mahlon Blaine

Filed Under: Fine & Decorative Art, Sorry, It's Sold
Tagged With: 1930s, american, avant-garde, erotic, illustration, industrial age, macabre, machine age, Mahlon Blaine, modernism, muralist, new york city, nude, Paul MacAlister, robot, WPA
Added to Gallery: May 15, 2016

The fifth of ten 1939 mural designs by Mahlon Blaine, which were intended to become murals for the studio or showroom of noted New York City industrial designer Paul MacAlister. In this scene our nude goddess pours flower petals into the mouth of a robotic machine as a Buckingham Palace Royal Guard on horse cleverly protects her modesty. The adjoining stone masonry watches on in amusement as a bird of pray hovers above tied from a high building rafter that frames the scene. An inspired visionary artwork in a red, white and blue Americana color palette. Marked on verso design #5, this comes beautifully matted and framed from the estate of Paul Ritter MacAlister.

Nude Feeding Industry

Artist: Mahlon Blaine

Filed Under: Fine & Decorative Art, Sorry, It's Sold
Tagged With: 1930s, american, avant-garde, erotic, illustration, industrial age, machine age, Mahlon Blaine, modernism, muralist, new york city, nude, Paul MacAlister, robot, WPA
Added to Gallery: May 15, 2016

A mixed media gouache and pastel portrait work by the gifted and fondly remembered Russian Jewish artist Alexander Davidovich Ziliouk – Sacha Zaliouk. The artist moved to Paris in 1912 and studied at the Paris Ecole des Beaux-Arts. He contributed jazz-age art deco illustrations for many of the notorious French Roaring twenties flapper girl magazines such as Fantasio, Sourire, Le Journal Amusant, La Vie Parisienne and the more scabrous Paris-plaisirs. He set up a studio in the cities Montparnasse area and was a well known and often exhibited avant-garde artist as seen by this haunting and evocotive unique portrait of a lovely young Parisian.

Through a Paris Window

Artist: Sacha Zaliovk

Filed Under: Fine & Decorative Art, Sorry, It's Sold
Tagged With: 1920s, art deco, flapper, french, paris, Sacha Zaliovk
Added to Gallery: May 12, 2016

The fourth of ten 1939 mural designs by Mahlon Blaine, which were intended to become murals for the studio or showroom of noted New York City interior designer Paul MacAlister. In “The Toast of Manhattan” a nude goddess with serpents for hair pours a martini for a tuxedo clad robot as the adjoining stone masonry watches on disapprovingly. Even the tenements have eyes in this surrealist and inspired visionary artwork. Marked on verso design #4, this comes beautifully matted and framed from the estate of Paul MacAlister.

The Toast of Manhattan

Artist: Mahlon Blaine

Filed Under: Fine & Decorative Art, Sorry, It's Sold
Tagged With: 1930s, american, avant-garde, erotic, illustration, industrial age, machine age, Mahlon Blaine, martini, modernism, mural, muralist, new york city, nude, Paul MacAlister, robot, study, WPA
Added to Gallery: May 12, 2016

The third of ten gouache paintings created by Mahlon Blaine in 1939 under the pseudonym G. Christopher Hudson, offering a dark and pessimistically erotic take on the skyscraper landscape that was taking over Manhattan. In this scene a nude Medusa like creature ball dances with a robot in a high wire styled act on scaffolding high above the city. Blaine treated each individual painting in the series as its own completed stand alone artwork, with painstaking detail and inspired yet terrifying imagery.

Nude Dancing with Robot

Artist: Mahlon Blaine

Filed Under: Fine & Decorative Art, Sorry, It's Sold
Tagged With: 1930s, american, avant-garde, erotic, illustration, industrial age, machine age, Mahlon Blaine, modernism, mural, muralist, new york city, nude, Paul MacAlister, robot, study, WPA
Added to Gallery: May 12, 2016

In this work, the first of the series, and the image that was to greet visitors as they entered the room, a nude showgirl dancer does a sad burlesque, her shadow duplicated in silhouette in a Coney Island funhouse style. Both evoking and critiquing the sordid and semi-underground world of Depression-era girlie shows, the artwork lures the viewer into the underbelly of the city that is explored in the nine images that follow.

The Sad Burlesque

Artist: Mahlon Blaine

Filed Under: Fine & Decorative Art, Sorry, It's Sold
Tagged With: 1930s, american, avant-garde, burlesque, erotic, illustration, industrial age, machine age, Mahlon Blaine, modernism, mural, muralist, new york city, nude, Paul MacAlister, showgirl, study, WPA
Added to Gallery: May 11, 2016

An action packed 1965 oil and tempura painting by Harry Schaare, that appeared as the cover of the Pyramid paperback Harlem Underground written by the author known as Ed Lacy. Lacy was a pseudonym for Leonard S. Zinberg who explored themes of racial prejudices and injustices throughout his fiction. In this work, Lee Hayes, a rookie policeman with youthful looks and […]

Harlem Underground

Artist: Harry Schaare

Filed Under: Paperback & Pulp Art, Sorry, It's Sold
Tagged With: Harlem Underground, Harry Schaare, lurid, original cover art, original illustration art, paperback, pulp, True Crime
Added to Gallery: April 29, 2016

An evocative pin-up girl pulp cover watercolor painting by Malcolm Smith for the May, 1953 issue of Fate Magazine – True Stories Of The Strange And The Unknown. This was created to illustrate the interior story “Do You Hear Colors?” On the printed cover there were black musical notes applied, (likely on a separate transparency […]

Do You Hear Colors?

Artist: Malcolm Smith

Filed Under: Paperback & Pulp Art, Sorry, It's Sold
Tagged With: 1950s, fantasy, Fate Magazine, magazine cover, Malcolm Smith, original cover art, pin up, pulp
Added to Gallery: April 28, 2016

In this large, dramatic and darkly twisted oil on canvas, Fred Pfeiffer perfectly captures the menace and seduction associated with the post-hippie /post Manson family druggie scene, as depicted in counter-culture books and films which proliferated in the 1970s. The work appeared as the cover for the 1975 Bantam paperback The Fear Dealers, written by Jack W. Thomas, who specialized in these […]

The Fear Dealers

Artist: Fred Pfeiffer

Filed Under: Paperback & Pulp Art, Sorry, It's Sold
Tagged With: Bantam Book, drug culture, Fred Pfeiffer, Gang, Hippie, lurid, original cover art, paperback, pulp, risque, sleaze, The Fear Dealers
Added to Gallery: April 28, 2016

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