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!

A rare surviving aviation themed pulp cover painting by Stockton Mulford for the cover of Fawcett’s Battle Stories, August 1929 (thanks to Doug Clemons for the i.d.). In this dramatic image, a recently downed airplane smolders as the ejected American Air Force pilot, armed only with a wrench, engages in combat against a German, bayonet-wielding, WWI soldier. Aviation pulps appeared on news-stands in the 1920s as the horror of World War I began to fade from public memory leaving room for the development of heroic and mythic tales of soldiers and aviators. Until the start of the Second World War, the aviation pulps focused on these Great War-themed stories, but after 1941, their content switched to tales of glory from the front lines of WWII.

The Battle After The Crash

Artist: Stockton Mulford

This good girl art original pastel exemplifies the beauty and personality which kept pin up and glamour a mainstay of calendar imagery even after illustration began giving way to technicolor photography in popularity. This features a fresh faced auburn haired modernist beauty queen from 1975 envisioned by the leading female pin-up illustrator Pearl Frush and published by Gerlach-Barklow of Joliet Illinois.

A Modern Miss 1975

Artist: Pearl Frush

A Christmas themed dazzling original calendar illustration by Bill Layne for The Brown & Bigelow Calendar Company. This was for a pharmacy drugstore account and appeared on a Christmas Holiday Calendar in 1953. Layne worked for Walt Disney in the art department creating story board graphics and design embellishments which is apparent here in his twinkling Tinkerbell fairy goddess depiction.

Tinkerbell Rx

Artist: Bill Layne

A dazzling Heinrich Kley mixed media work featuring a host of primordial animals engaged in an orgiastic dance of evolution. A splendid cast of characters is assembled by this fondly remembered avant-garde, Jugendstil, German Expressionist artist. This is a rare full color example of the artist’s work, most surviving pieces by Kley are pen & ink drawings. This evocative artwork is rich in humor, technique and imagery. Work is in a wonderful state of preservation and nicely matted and framed in a period gesso frame.

Primordial Soup

Artist: Heinrich Kley

A radiant and pristine original pastel glamour pin-up illustration by Pearl Frush, created in 1944 and used in the 1945 Gerlach-Barklow calendar line under the title “Lovely as the Dawn”. This really shows to great affect what Frush was able to create with her almost photo-realist in technique pastel mastery. Housed in its handsome original presentation frame properly lined behind glass with a verso tag from Robberson Steel Co. of Oklahoma who was gifted this pastel in exchange for their advertising.

Lovely As The Dawn

Artist: Pearl Frush

“Angel Face” is a dazzling, nearly photo-realist 1959 original glamour girl pin-up pastel by Pearl Frush which was published by the Gerlach-Barklow Calendar Company of Joliet Illinois. This was gifted by a salesman at Gerlach-Barklow to the Robberson Steel Company of Oklahoma City in appreciation for their lucrative advertising account. Pastel is in a pristine state of conservation in the original gold wide profile frame lined behind glass with plate on front with title and year of print publication.

Angel Face

Artist: Pearl Frush

This good girl art original pastel exemplifies the beauty and personality which kept pin up and glamour a mainstay of calendar imagery even after illustration began giving way to photography in popularity. This features a fresh faced brunette envisioned by the leading female pin-up illustrator Pearl Frush and published by Gerlach-Barklow of Joliet Illinois. It was customary for calendar salesmen to reward premiere advertising accounts with original illustrations as incentive to keep advertising with the firm.

Miss 1964

Artist: Pearl Frush

This rare original painting by Henry Clive graced the cover of the June 18, 1933 edition of William Randolph Hearst’s The American Weekly. Clive was often called upon to create serialized images of pin up enchantresses who embodied a theme. This is one of those works – from a series of images which depicted a variety of maidens about to be struck by cupid’s arrow.

Cupids No.2 – An Indian Maiden

Artist: Henry Clive

This original Old Gold Cigarettes commissioned advertising painting appeared in print in 1939 under the title “Wa-Ta-Hun-Ee!”. That year George Petty created a full years worth of Old Gold Petty girls for the ad agency Lennen & Mitchell, creating continued interest in the Old Gold Brand with the monthly appearance of his deliriously successful pin-up creations. In the scene, a sexy Indian Maiden takes aim with quiver and bow in what has surely become one of the more iconic works by this great artist and illustrator.

Wa-Ta-Hun-Ee!

Artist: George Petty

A moving and evocotive, free flowing oil rendering of a Spanish-themed nude senorita by Edmund Ward. Making his first illustrations for the Saturday Evening Post before he was age 20, Ward had a successful career as an illustrator of works that ranged in style and subject matter from dark tonalist in oils to humorous in wash and watercolor. For many years he illustrated the Alexander Botts and Assistant District Attorney Doowinkle stories for the Post.

A Spanish Nude

Artist: Edmund Ward

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