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 charming and well rendered 1954 oil on canvas painting created for an Ohleen Dairy Calendar by the Louis F. Dow Company. The artist is Vaughan Alden Bass, who specialized in pin-up art for this Saint Paul Minnesota gone but not forgotten Calendar giant. Of particular note in this lovely painting is the adorable bakelite crib toy in the lower right corner. verso canvas is dated 1954, and stretcher is marked with Ohleen Dairy, 1954 Line and Current in pen.
Artist: Vaughan Bass
A snappy and sexy original pastel illustration by Earl Moran commissioned as a 1951 Brown & Bigelow calendar. Text reads “Here’s an extra addition you can hardly refuse; for this little gal is just covered in news…” Pastel is beautifully framed and condition is outstanding as is the image.
Artist: Earl Moran
A photo-realist, kinetic original oil on board by James Bama. This painting, created as a cover for Stag Magzine, illustrates the outlandish true story of Faustin Wirkus, an American soldier who became king of a small island off Haiti in 1906. Faustus was made famous in the 1930s book “The Magic Isle” and was a cult figure thereafter. Interior text reads in part “For five fabulous years, by order of the U.S. Marine Corps, he ruled the mid-ocean island- voodoo, personal harem and all.” Work is unsigned but article credits art by James Bama, magazine is included in sale.
Artist: James Bama
This dramatic and deftly rendered gouache was created as the cover for “Male” February 1966 “Yank Imposter In The Luftwaffe,” and reprinted as an interior 2 page spread in the June 1967 issue of “For Men Only” titled “10 Days To Bring In The Death Head General.” A remarkably tight work that shows Kunstler at his best, using an almost photo-realist technique to create tension, menace and fear.
Artist: Mort Künstler
A large pastel by Leon Dolice featuring a stark view of an illuminated New York City skyline. Leon Dolice worked for over 60 years painting New York City views borrowing from the French Impressionists and Claude Monet specifically. His countless pastel variations capture his beloved Manhattan in varying lighting and color combinations and pastel configurations. The work highlights the extreme skyscraper forms and machine age industrialism which transformed the New York skyline during the art deco jazz age. A fresh estate find from the Collection of The Mayo Clinic in Rochester Minnesota.
Artist: Leon Dolice
A well rendered erotically posed Diana the Huntress nude pin-up painting by Lawrence Gordon Low, in a stylish wide profile gallery frame. The work is estate stamped on the verso and is a luminous well realized example of The Great American Pin-up.
Artist: Lawrence Low
A flirty, scandalous and new to the market cover illustration by Enoch Bolles, which appeared first as a cover for a 1930’s Young’s Magazine, and again made an appearance on a 1938 cover of Breezy Stories. Enoch Bolles excelled in these curiously proportioned Spicy Pulp, envelope pushing, angular modernist heartbreakers. This is a spectacular work which, like most Bolles’ offerings, is unsigned and is nicely framed and ready to hang.
Artist: Enoch Bolles
An original gouache on board created for the cover of the September 1962 edition of For Men Only, illustrating the story Operation”Never-Talk:” Shocking Revenge of Norway’s Partisan Nymph. (A Smuggled-In Yank And A Wild Anti-Nazi Underground Girl by James S. Wagner. A large finely rendered scene of a bungled SS operation, with a trio of tightly wound American service men, a gathering of inebriated Nazi’s and a pair of scantily clad female secret agents acting as decoys.
Artist: Mort Künstler
A large gouache illustration for the January 1961 edition of Stag Magazine. A daring night time rescue depiction illustrating the interior story “The Amazing GI Who Took Three Head Hunting Brides. A Pacific Island World War II entanglement complete with topless native women and native headhunters and a lone anglo-saxonized square jawed daring G.I.
Artist: Mort Künstler
An alarmingly disturbing and well rendered original gouache illustration by the highly regarded and prolific illustrator Mort Kunstler, this interior 2-page spread appeared in the August 1961 edition of Male Magazine, illustrating Martin Fass’s Million-Dollar Manhunt For A Cold War Nymph. The lurid, defining action-filled image captures the prevailing nihilism associated with the 1960’s “sweat magazine” art and envelope-pushing adventure fiction. Text reads “She was the top female agent of BACO-Europe’s anti-fascist Assassin’s League, and when she fell into enemy hands, the Yanks had two weeks to find her-or it was war in the Middle East.”
Artist: Mort Künstler
