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 haunting original watercolor on board verso stamped for use by The Saturday Evening Post by acclaimed American illustrator Henry Soulen. From a pre-air travel era in American popular culture when tastes ran towards the exotic, foreign and mysterious. Nicely framed in a period gesso gold wood frame.
Artist: Henry Soulen
This cheeky and colorful original gouache cover illustration painting by the well listed Wisconsin artist Lester Bentley graced the cover of Rogue For Men Magazine, August 1956. Both Lloyd Rognan and Lester Bentley were encouraged as cover artists for Rogue to have fun with their mascot–a caddish, happy go lucky, wolf of distinction. This cover features the Rogue Wolf seaside preparing a beverage in a streamlined art deco cocktail shaker for his bathing beauty companion; bottoms up indeed! Nicely framed and matted behind glass and ready to hang.
Artist: Lester Bentley
This period 1930s signed oil on stretched canvas painting was created by the New York state fine artist and illustrator Robert T. Riley. With a social realist / WPA styled grittiness, Riley captures the hardscrapple life of deck hands hard at work, while eluding to the anxieties of the Great Depression. The stylized rigging suggests the mechanization of the Industrial revolution, and the sailors pulling up the sails find their muscles strained to the point of breaking in an homage to John Henry.
Artist: Robert Riley
An outstanding large oil painting by the well listed and prolific fine artist and illustrator Frederick Sands Brunner, this oil on canvas features a pretty red haired sunlit nude with an engaging smile and pretty figure with porcelain white skin gathering water at a stream. The verso bears a foil gallery label for Newman Galleries in Philadelphia where the artist exhibited and sold many of his his works in this genre.
Artist: Frederick Sands Brunner
This powerful example of golden age American illustration art playfully explores the tension between past and future presented in the early motor age. In this affecting unsigned image, the cliche of the Western Americana “Westward Ho” expansion scene is reinterpreted through the addition of an up-to-the-minute flapper girl in an adorable cloche hat. Beneath our heroine–who, along with her car, is checked out by a cowboy attired service attendant–text reads “Forms No Hard Carbon.”
Artist: Unknown
A finely executed dated 1927 pen & ink illustration on board by Cardwell Higgins with inventive art deco style. A Persian attired Orientalist showgirl is depicted in a burlesque vaudeville-era Ziegfeld Follies inspired theatrical production. The work recalls the erotic and stylized pen & ink works of British artist Aubrey Beardsley.
Artist: Cardwell Higgins
A tense and well rendered set at sea Golden Age of Illustration painting by the noted and prolific American artist Ralph Pallen Coleman, signed and dated 1925 in the lower right corner. Set aboard a ship at sea, the image hints that the vessel is heading into troubled waters at least metaphorically. While the well groomed male calmly prepares to light his pipe, his pretty flapper companion holds her hand over her heart, both attracted to and made nervous by taking this trip with her suitor.
Artist: Ralph Coleman
This is the very rare surviving original pastel illustration on board by Emil Flohri of Rudolph Valentino as the title character in Son of The Sheik, the controversial romantic adventure that was unexpectedly the final film starring silent filmdom’s first iconic heartthrob. This signed pastel was commissioned and used as the cover for the September 1926 edition of Motion Picture Magazine, and was published almost simultaneously with the unexpected death of Valentino on August 23rd, 1926. A complete copy of the printed magazine is included in the sale.
Artist: Emil Flohri
Grapefruit Moon Gallery is delighted to offer the original published cover pastel by the obscure female New York City Illustrator Tempest Inman used for the July 1922 cover of Photoplay Magazine. This captures to great affect the smoldering intensity and rugged good looks of the Latin lover film star Rudolph Valentino. This is easily the most famous movie magazine cover in Hollywood film history the image is reproduced as the cover of the hardcover book “Photoplay Treasury” that came out in 1972. This was owned by Ken Galente in New York City who operated The Silver Screen Gallery in the garment district for many years until his death. I had the pastel silk lined and framed in a 22 carat gold leaf frame and it displays wonderfully, the condition is excellent with strong vibrant colors and great clarity.
Artist: Tempest Inman
A large and beautiful original pastel by Rolf Armstrong that first appeared as a pin-up calendar for The Thos. D. Murphy Calendar Company under the title “Orchids To You”. Armstrong only created eight artworks for the Iowa based company, and as he was already America’s premiere glamour illustrator when he began working with them, he was permitted to retain ownership of his original pastels. He often reworked these slightly for use as covers for College Humor magazine, during the tail end of his ten year association with the periodical. Staying just outside copyright infringement by removing the orchids from the model’s left hand, and placing a “New York” and “C” for copyright under his distinctive signature, this altered version appeared on the cover of College Humor in March of 1936, the last time an Armstrong girl would grace this title. This pastel appears in a mid 1930s “Armstrong Art Service’s” brochure with the title of “Flower of the North” which is included in sale.
Artist: Rolf Armstrong
