Original Art from the Grand Age of American Illustration
A sensational original signed and dated 1912 painting by Edmund Dulac published as the fourth plate in the Hodder & Stougton edition of The Bells and Other Poems by Edgar Allan Poe. A master of early 20th century illustrations, Dulac is known for his mysterious and compelling depictions of fairytales and imagined lands. Pictured […]
Artist: Edmund Dulac
This dark and cleverly conceived and technically brilliant tinted pen & ink drawing with gouache highlights exemplifies the German expressionist artist Heinrich Kley’s brooding and satirical vision of mankind. At first take, we see a bear, ogre, and frog cavorting in a circus-like atmosphere, but on further reflection the scene turns darker. Kley’s pessimism […]
Artist: Heinrich Kley
This important and defining oil on canvas portrait features a stylized Mata Hari in the midst of one of her sensual, almost trance-like dances. The highly moody piece is a wonderful example of the 1900-1915 century Spanish modernismo movement by Anselmo Miguel Nieto, one of its brightest talents. This classically inspired yet fully modern painting applies formal chiaroscuro technique (the exaggerated use of light and dark to create a dramatic perspective) to one of the great courtesans of early 20th century Europe to create a sexually and politically subversive yet beautiful work.
Artist: Anselmo Miguel Nieto
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
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.
Artist: Heinrich Kley
This Pierrot-inspired flapper girl pastel was created by Henry Clive as cover art for a Hollywood Comedy Club burlesque program. With a mischevious glint in her eye, the smiling blond embodies the devil-may-care ethos of the early jazz age. After moving to California to work in silent films, Clive was very much a part of the Hollywood social scene. This original pastel is an early example of his fraternal pursuits, and includes a faint dedication to a fellow member of the Hollywood Comedy Club for which this was created.
Artist: Henry Clive
The Light of New York by Walter Dean Goldbeck was created as a full page color advertisement that ran in The Saturday Evening Post for General Electric. The inspired and almost transcendentally captivating image would later become a Judge Magazine cover (August 1, 1914) under the title “The Spirit of New York”. The image, which features a mischievous goddess sprinkling moonlight down onto the city below also captured the imagination of music publishers Fred Fischer, who used it as a sheet music cover for his composition “I Found a Rose in the Devil’s Garden.”
Artist: Walter Dean Goldbeck
A technically proficient early surviving self portrait charcoal drawing of and by Rolf Armstrong,
capturing a slightly idealized version of the handsome square jawed athletic and rugged young artist who was also an avid boxer and sailor. Armstrong was 26 at the time of this self portrait and was about two years into his commercial illustration career, during these early years the artist used himself for several commissioned works requiring a male model. From estate of Mike Wooldridge, co-author of “Pin-up Dreams – The Glamour Art of Rolf Armstrong”.
Artist: Rolf Armstrong
In 1917, Theda Bara was the biggest draw for Fox studios, and a movie star whose popularity was surpassed only by Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford. In this photograph by Albert Witzel, hand colored and printed she is seen posed in an early iteration of her Cleopatra headdress, with flowing deep black hair. Inscribed to Tom Mix, the cowboy superstar, who in 1917 had just joined Bara as a headlining performer for Fox studios, this came from Mix’s collection.
Artist: Albert Witzel
An elementally beautiful nymph in the midst of metamorphosis rises from the churning sea in this mythic and beautiful 1907 oil on canvas by Paul Swan. This important early example from the artist, who was himself a social butterfly, features tremendous sophistication of technique, and combines the Art Nouveau style which was popular at the time with hints of the streamlined figural forms which would become synonymous with the art deco era.
Artist: Paul Swan
