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!
An unlikely red headed pin up girl fencing in her lingerie is the star attraction of this early rare surviving Gil Elvgren original pin up painting titled “Foil Proof.” Not sure lingerie offers the best protection during a sword fight, but this luscious lady is sure a treat for the eyes. Created for the Louis […]
Artist: Gil Elvgren
An original oil painting by Earl Moran for the Brown & Bigelow Calendar Company used as a March 1947 calendar girl with caption that read “My teacher says I’m quite advanced – For one so young in years. And that the answers that I know – Should vanish all my fears.” This image also appeared […]
Artist: Earl Moran
This pin up bathing beauty original painting was created by T J Kuck. It is an extremely well done oil painting of a pretty girl in a swimsuit on the beach, this would appear to date to the 1960s. T. J. Kuck, also known as Ted Kuck, worked as an artist for the Brown and […]
Artist: T. J. Kuck
A large classic Americana c. 1950 oil painting on canvas created for Atlantic Petroleum by Hayden Hayden. This was likely created as a billboard advertising design. In this all-American apple pie depiction, a clean cut high school football star has attracted the interest of a pretty co-ed after being “Fixed Up For The […]
Artist: Hayden Hayden
An allegorical angelic scene by noted American fine artist, muralist, and illustrator Charles Allen Winter titled “Liberty Unchained.” Our research leads us to believe this was an interior magazine illustration for Cosmopolitan, which ran a series of spiritually relevant writings by Roycroft founder and early twentieth century philosopher Elbert Hubbard under the title “Little Sermons”–all illustrated by Winter. Several of Winter’s “Sermons” paintings were then reproduced in Hubbard’s own publication “The Fra.” From the estate of Charles Martignette, the sadly departed author of the “The Great American Pin-Up.”
Artist: Charles Winter
An unabashedly pure cheesecake situational pin up painting by Harry Ekman likely for The Shaw-Barton Calendar Company of Coshocton, Ohio. In this summertime sizzling scene, a pin up dream–clad only in the skimpiest negligee–finds herself at the fuse-box. The combination of the model’s attempt to keep cool with only a fan and her revealing see […]
Artist: Harry Ekman
A lustful, original cover painting by Rudy Nappi for the 1959 Tower paperback cover titled A Strange Kind of Love, by Lawrence Block, written under his early pseudonym Sheldon Lord. Billed as a “daring tale of the love life of a writer and his most unusual mistress,” Block has described the story as that of […]
Artist: Rudy Nappi
This collection of three published Brown & Bigelow calendar girl paintings from 1950 offers a mid-century modernist Parisian take on classic pin up art. We believe the artist to be Jean-Gabriel Domergue who was active at the time in France, creating breezy coquettish often times topless hatted sophisticates. These are signed “Ioxia of Paris” we […]
Artist: Attributed to Domergue
This remarkable image features a nude reclining maiden by one of our favorite Golden Age illustrators W.T. Benda. A dazzling composition, an intricate and technically adept graphite drawing with silver glittery paint highlighting the subject’s hair and face. Signed lower right and beautifully framed and silk matted behind glass in a hand carved gold leafed […]
Artist: Wladyslaw Benda
A sensational original signed and dated 1912 painting by Edmund Dulac published as the fourth plate in the Hodder & Stougton edition of The Bells and Other Poems by Edgar Allan Poe. A master of early 20th century illustrations, Dulac is known for his mysterious and compelling depictions of fairytales and imagined lands. Pictured […]
Artist: Edmund Dulac
