Original Art from the Grand Age of American Illustration
A large mid-1950’s calendar girl pin-up pastel that was commissioned by the Shaw-Barton Calendar Company for one of their wildly successful and genre changing “Sketchbook” style 12 page pin-up calendars. Knute “K.O.” Munson executed many pastels for the Brown & Bigelow Calendar Company during the 1940’s and then Shaw-Barton. He later went on to become a successful cheesecake pin-up photographer during illustration arts lean years of the 1960’s, a charmed life to be sure.
Artist: K. O. Munson
A large and moody defining interior illustration for a mid 1950’s edition of Cosmopolitan Magazine by Alexander Sharpe Ross, titled A Weeping Violet. Ross was a leading American illustrator in the 1940s and 50s, with work featured on the covers of Good Housekeeping, The Saturday Evening Post, Ladies Home Journal and Colliers. Along with a handful of key illustrators — Coby Whitmore, John Whitcomb, Al Parker and Norman Rockwell — Ross helped create an indelible image of Americans in the post WWII decades.
Artist: Alex Ross
A large original commissioned pin-up genre pastel on illustration board by Knute O. Munson for a 1952 Brown & Bigelow Calendar titled Our Knowledge and Experience At Your Command. This was given to a store owner in Tulsa Oklahoma decades earlier by the regional Brown & Biglelow salesman there as a reward for advertising with his company. It is cleverly signed lower left on the spine of one of the books.
Artist: K. O. Munson
A summer themed, bright, fresh interior story illustration from an American Slick Magazine perhaps Cosmopolitan, Liberty or The Ladies’ Home Journal. A crisply executed, apple pie Americana genre vision. This peaceful artwork showcases the post WWII economic boom and leisure pursuits of the growing American middle class.
Artist: Robert Patterson
A sultry, deviant yet sensual young nude by the Hungarian-American painter Pal Fried; a prolific, wildly popular painter who specialized in ballerinas and nudes. Marked on verso stretcher ” Lita ” # 44339. Comes in original ornate lovely gesso frame. A large pristine defining example signed upper right.
Artist: Pal Fried
A defining and flat out extrordinary original illustration painting for a as of yet undetermined science fiction pulp magazine cover By Lloyd Rognan (1923-2005). An Original oil on Norlin illustration board depicting space travelers among the ruins of a railroad union station from the 1950’s. Present in the image are advertising icons such as Kodak and the B & O Railroad. The artist recently passed away and many works were recently auctioned off directly from his estate. This to my eyes was the defining work by this highly regarded and frequently published illustrator.
Artist: Lloyd Rognan
A rare surviving original cover illustration for Rogue For Me Magazine by Lloyd Rognan for an July 1956 edition. Rognan had a long and prolific career as an illustrator , he studied with an early WPA art student project, contributed regularily for Stars and Stripes. Later his science fiction pulp artwork appeared as covers for such publications as Fate, Imagination and ImaginativeTales, and other sci-fi pulp magazines exploiting the “pre Apollo” moon mission space travel craze. In the 60’s, Rognan was also a regular staff artist for Brown & Bigelow and created a hillbilly humor line called Corn Squeezins.
Artist: Lloyd Rognan
A genre defining original illustration painting for the October 1956 edition of Imagination Science Fiction for the interior story by Edmond Hamilton titled Citadel Of The Star Lords. By Lloyd Rognan (1923-2005) an Original oil on illustration board depicting ufo’s , rayguns, mayhem and all things lurid sci-fi, set amongst the ruins of a town center square anytown USA circa 1950’s. The artist recently passed away and many works were recently auctioned off directly from his estate. This to my eyes was one of the defining work by this highly regarded and frequently published illustrator.
Artist: Lloyd Rognan
A very stylized and decidedly mid-century modern period original gouache illustration by Edwin Georgi for an interior story in Redbook Magazine titled on verso Encounter on the Beach. Estate stamped and signed upper right, work is beautifully matted and framed. A defining example.
Artist: Edwin Georgi
A rare and outstanding situational pin-up painting used as calendar art for The Louis F. Dow Calendar Co., circa 1950. Image is playfully titled A Double Catch. This was purchased by a gentleman the day he got back from the Viet Nam War in the early 1970’s. The Dow Calendar Company rented a downtown Saint Paul hotel and sold off their paintings and original calendar art at $50.00 a painting! This is a major find and has never been on the market since it was purchased thirty years ago. Great composition and outdoors man-themed, fly fishing/rainbow trout scene in perfect flawless condition as seen.
Artist: Vaughan Bass
