Original Art from the Grand Age of American Illustration
A rare surviving luminous pastel portrait of early talkie era legendary Hollywood film star Katherine Hepburn, created as the cover for the September 1933 issue of Screenland Magazine. An excellent example of cover portraiture by Charles Gates Sheldon who had a very prolific career creating stylized glamorous art deco Hollywood film star portraits for many of the leading jazz age movie magazine titles. Pastel is beautifully framed and silk matted behind glass.
Artist: Charles Sheldon
A rare original pastel of Jean Harlow commissioned and used as the cover for the March 1932 edition of “The New Movie Magazine” by prolific American illustrator Charles Gates Sheldon. Sheldon was a frequent cover artist for this title and for Photoplay Magazine capturing the allure of the silent and early talkie era female film stars in glamorous stylized pastel portraits taken from photographs he shot himself at his Carnegie Hall, New York City Studio. A coveted example of early tinseltown featuring perhaps the eras brightest and biggest star.
Artist: Charles Sheldon
A deftly rendered luminous pastel portrait of silent and early talkie legendary Hollywood film star Greta Garbo, created as the cover for the June 1934 issue of Screenland Magazine. One of the finest examples of cover portraiture we have ever come across by Charles Gates Sheldon who had a very prolific career creating stylized glamorous art deco Hollywood film star portraits for many of the leading jazz age movie magazine titles.
Artist: Charles Sheldon
An inventive and forward thinking “progress through industry” original gouache illustration painting by Theodore Haupt. This was commissioned by The New Yorker magazine and used as their May 2, 1931 cover. The imagery attempts to put a positive spin on the Great Depression using modernism, industry and the technological advances of the Machine Age as rallying points in this bustling New York City cityscape. Haupt illustrated forty four covers for The New Yorker between 1927 and 1933.
Artist: Theodore Haupt
An inventive and unique hand crafted Holiday Seasons Greeting Card from the F. Burtis Clayton Company who we believe were a commercial airbrush art studio. The cover features a streamlined airbrushed painting of a modernist silhouetted cityscape with planes, trains and automobiles ushering in the machine age. Nicely framed, this opens to reveal text and New Year’s wishes as would a more typical holiday card.
Artist: Unknown
A recently discovered radiant C.1934 pastel portrait by Rolf Armstrong of the beautiful and glamorous and tragically short lived Hollywood film legend Carole Lombard. This work was never published, it was likely proposed as a cover for Modern Screen magazine. A luminous and large pastel on illustration board, handsomely matted and framed behind glass, a fresh never before on the market rare and important offering.
Artist: Rolf Armstrong
This very rare illustration is possibly the only surviving pin-up girl, non-menace themed spicy pulp cover painting ever offered for sale by H.J. Ward. This was created for the spicy pulp title “Tattle Tales” and was published as either the March 1937 or June 1937 edition. Hugh J. Ward was a prolific pulp cover artist who has enjoyed much recent acclaim. At a recent 2010 auction, one of Ward’s damsel in distress cover paintings (August 1936 Spicy Mystery Stories) fetched $143,400.
Artist: H. J. Ward
In an unusual blonde hatted view by George Hurrell, Joan Crawford is captured in her most captivating glory by the master of Hollywood photography George Hurrell. In a gentle sepia on a large format double weight semi-gloss paperstock, Hurrell captures the beauty of the young Joan Crawford, with her effortless art deco style, and emboldened flapper sensibility. This is blindstamped by Hurrell lower right, and inkstamped on verso.
Artist: George Hurrell
In a glamorous wide-brimmed hat, Joan Crawford displays the smoldering intense gaze that was to become her trademark in this image by the incomparable George Hurrell. This double weight gallery still is the personality portrait at its finest, on a high end double weight photostock, and never intended for public distribution. A pre-code form of glamorous sophistication the likes of with Hollywood rarely saw.
Artist: George Hurrell
Along with its companion work “Ye Chiselers” (previously sold through Grapefruit Moon Gallery), Clive created this masterwork for the tavern of The Masquers Club, a historic and fascinating Hollywood institution. A reclining redheaded flapper is seen consorting with a Persian genie of sorts, illustrating the verse from the Rubaiyat which is inscribed on the mural.
Artist: Henry Clive
