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!

Triple X Rancho is perhaps the most unabashedly lurid spicy pulp scene created by Allen Anderson during his prolific career as a freelance illustrator. This image, which features a terrified yet sexually provocative pin up cowgirl being branded against her will was created as the cover of the February 1943 edition of Spicy Western Stories, Volume #8 Issue #6. This rare surviving oil painting is in a very fine state of conservation and one of but a few examples of the artist’s published pulp covers to emerge.

Triple X Rancho

Artist: Allen Anderson

A lurid spicy pulp cover oil painting by Allen Anderson
created as the cover of the February 1943 edition of Speed Western Stories, Volume #1 Issue #2 (Trojan Publishing, Chicago). A rare surviving example of Western themed spicy pulp cover art, this was unearthed along with two additional original cover paintings by Allen Anderson that had for many years been displayed at the Cimarron Dude Ranch in Peekskill, New York.

Frisco Or Bust

Artist: Allen Anderson

Allen Anderson created this damsel in distress, Western spicy pulp oil on canvas painting as the cover of the April 1943 edition of Speed Western Stories, Volume #1 Issue #4 (Trojan Publishing, Chicago). This vivid and rare surviving example of lurid spicy pulp cover art was unearthed by Grapefruit Moon Gallery along with two additional original cover paintings by Allen Anderson that had for many years been displayed at the Cimarron Dude Ranch in Peekskill, New York.

Bucky Swings The Whip

Artist: Allen Anderson

This original cover painting by noted Russian American illustrator Constantin Alajalov was created for the March 21, 1936 edition of The New Yorker magazine. In the scene, what remains of a crowd of concert goers (most seem to have already taken to the exits) respond in typically divergent ways to a hunched over “lost in the moment” concert pianist who has turned away from the immortal sounds of Johann Bach to offer likely more personal yet less successful selections. Alajalov created over 70 covers in his iconic style for this Conde-Nast publication and also contributed cover art for The Saturday Evening Post.

New Yorker Cover

Artist: Constantin Alajalov

This May 1930 science fiction pulp gouache painting on illustration board by noted comic artist Charles Clarence Beck who signed much of his work C.C. Beck illustrates a poem by Donald Wandrei titled Marmora. Our research suggests this could be the earliest published example of Beck’s work, as it predates his first known job by a few years. The work is sensational with a cobalt blue color palette and precise landscape work which appears to be influenced by Rockwell Kent.

Marmora

Artist: C. C. Beck

A rare surviving mixed medium calendar commissioned painting for “American Art Works Company”. A Great Depression-era 1930s art deco work by L. Goddard of a lovely young Indian maiden drawing back cupid’s bow and taking aim. This large impressive work is beautifully framed and matted and ready to hang in a period ornate carved wood gold frame.

Taking Aim

Artist: L. Goddard

This original gouache painting by Henry Clive was used as the cover of Randolph Hearst’s American Weekly Magazine, August 6, 1944. One from a series of covers that glorified the beauty of women from the cultures America found itself allied with during the dark days of World War II, Global Glamour presented a rare opportunity for Clive to depict women from a variety of races in the guise of pin up and glamour art.

Global Glamour – Alaska

Artist: Henry Clive

A delicately rendered pastel on illustration board by Henry Clive, capturing an exotic pretty nude pin-up model with ruby red lips envisioned as a sleeping beauty. This captures effortlessly the prolific artist’s unique take on feminine allure. We believe this to be an unpublished illustration, retains its handsome hand carved wood gallery frame and is handsomely cloth matted and lined behind glass.

A Sleeping Beauty

Artist: Henry Clive

Pre-code Hollywood starlet Verna Hillie is the subject of this erotically charged pastel portrait which was likely used as a cover for the title Reel Movie Fun, a short lived wild and racy publication. Pastel is dated and signed on the back and the sitter is identified in the artist’s hand as seen.

Pre-Code Cover Portrait of Verna Hillie

Artist: Cardwell Higgins

This stirring oil on canvas presents a traditional Indonesian dance filled with music, movement, and joy. Martha Sawyers, the artist, made a name in the illustration world for her deeply sensitive and captivating portraits of Far Eastern life–she returned to the region time and again, and her appreciation for the variety of cultures and peoples she encountered culminated in the book she co-authored with her husband William Reusswig “India and Southeast Asia.”

Indonesian Dance

Artist: Martha Sawyers

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