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!

An inspired and inventive take on the biblical epic of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Blaine was a unique talent, and counter culture avant-garde artist who worked outside of the confines of the mainstream. A life-long bohemian, his work became increasingly sexual and marginalized from the norm of illustration art, and as time went on he counted the magician Dunninger among his closest friends, and most important patrons. His eerie and erotic style bore witness to his fascination with dark arts.

Garden of Eden

Artist: Mahlon Blaine

Ruth Chatterton is remembered as one of the most sophisticated beauties of the pre-code era of American film, and her refined and often chilly beauty is showcased wonderfully in this evocative portrait by the renowned Russell Ball. Signed in grease pencil by the photographer, this large format, marginless print was created for Chatterton’s personal collection, and this was printed by Ball himself and captures the spirit of subject, artist, and the art deco moment in which it was created.

A Sophisticated Ruth Chatterton

Artist: Russell Ball

The relationship between Greta Garbo and photographer Clarence Sinclair Bull is perhaps the most storied pairing in the star system of Golden Age Hollywood. Only Bull could coax the immortally sensual and iconic images that defined Garbo from the notoriously shy and reserved star. In this portrait from the 1934 film The Painted Veil, Garbo is seen in profile, with the luscious light and shadow for which the photographer was known.

Greta Garbo From The Painted Veil

Artist: Clarence Sinclair Bull

Shortly after cementing her reputation as a rising ingenue in Hollywood with the role of Wendy in Peter Pan, Mary Brian became one of the most in-demand heroines of the silent film era. In this sweetly romantic, yet sophisticated portrait of the beauty queen, Eugene Robert Richee, the Paramount Pictures studio photographer (best known for his portraits of Louise Brooks) showcases her complex allure.

Mary Brian in The Enchanted Hill

Artist: Eugene Robert Richee

Ruth Harriet Louise, the groundbreaking female photographer who created some of the best known 1920s jazz age Hollywood portraits for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, here captures Mae Murray at her most provocative and playful. Her “bee-stung lips” are on full display in his orientalist inspired and erotic sepia view. Large double-weight photographs such as this were never intended for widespread distributions, and were hand printed by the photographers themselves.

Provocative Jazz Age Mae Murray

Artist: Ruth Harriet Louise

An inventive stylized colorful dated gouache advertising painting by Cardwell Higgins for “Aris Britland Doeskin” gloves. An inventive color palette and attention to fashion style details make this a compelling and inventive example. A tear sheet of the printed work from the artist’s scrapbook is included in the sale.

Aris Britland Doeskins

Artist: Cardwell Higgins

An early fabulous pen & ink drawing by Cardwell Higgins in the art deco manner titled “Siamese Dancers”, possibly a commissioned work for use by Paramount Films where the artist was under contract in the late 1920s. Higgins completed a series of like minded costumed art deco pen & ink drawings between the years of 1927 – 1929 that were re-marketed as a series of limited edition art prints under the guidance of Charles Martignette in 1979. The work is finely matted and framed behind glass in a handsome art deco black and silver fine gallery frame.

Siamese Dancers

Artist: Cardwell Higgins

A large, signed and dated oil on canvas by noted and prolific Golden age illustrator Ralph Pallen Coleman. The work was commissioned for a 2 page spread in the November 1933 edition of Redbook Magazine, illustrating the Military-themed melodrama “Rank and File” by Charles L. Clifford and Mary C. McCall, Jr. The published edition of Redbook is included in the sale and the painting is nicely framed and ready to hang.

Rank and File

Artist: Ralph Coleman

A stark, eerie, machine age/industrial revolution 1938 Works Progress Administration sponsored oil painting by Thomas Tyrone Comfort, this darkly modernist view titled “Heat on Steel” features a haunting view of an arc welder at work in a surrealist factory. This large scale painting was created as public art and exhibited by the Federal Arts Project in 1938 and retains its original verso label. 1938 marked the height of the WPA art movement, and Comfort was one of its promising talents, creating evocatively expressive, and moody visions of Depression era science and industry.

Heat On Steel

Artist: Tyrone Comfort

A rare surviving pastel cover illustration by Cardwell Higgins for the first issue of Screen Humor Magazine; January 1934, Volume #1 – Issue #1. A very sexy flapper girl in silk stockings and garter belts from the art deco era when America’s news stands were filled with these often times very short lived runs of titillating Spicy Pulp titles that featured brazenly erotic pin-up girl depictions of showgirls and jazz-age playthings.

A Pre-View

Artist: Cardwell Higgins

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