american

A unique offering from the estate of Charles Martignette, the original Banshee’s club “Silver Lady” award presented to comic artist George McManus by Walt Disney himself on January 16th, 1952 at a Beverly Hills luncheon. This award statue was designed by another legendary illustrator, Willy Pogany and features a near nude pin-up girl with a quill pen and an elf and is silver-plated over cast bronze. This was purchased by us at the Charles Martignette estate auction in Delray Beach after the author’s untimely and sudden death in 2008.

Banshee’s Award, George McManus

Artist: Willy Pogany

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”.

Self Portrait

Artist: Rolf Armstrong

A spectacular surviving pulp cover painting by Norman Saunders for the Popular Publications August 1952 issue of New Detective Magazine, Volume #18 Issue #1. Saunders masterfully employs an extreme perspective and palette to give the scene an intense sense of danger, tension and drama. During the 1950s heyday of pulp magazines, literally hundreds of titles would be competing for customers any given month and publishers used Saunders dramatic, erotic, and intense covers to give their magazines the edge they needed to attract potential buyers at the newsstand.

New Detective Aerial Crime Scene

Artist: Norman Saunders

This large scale, colorful cheesecake pin up painting features a Hawaiian hula girl serenaded by Rogue Magazine’s signature wolf and was created as cover art by Lloyd Rognan for an unidentified issue of the infamous early men’s magazine. Beginning with the first issue of Rogue, Rognan developed a series of these cartoonish little red riding hood inspired entanglements, and this example is particularly appealing. A classic example of mid-century hula girl Hawaiiana in which the magazine’s signature “Rogue Wolf” plays the part of the haole (or in this case howly?) in tourist shirt.

A Hula Girl Serenade

Artist: Lloyd Rognan

A classic bad girl paperback cover illustration by the gifted and prolific Rafael DeSoto for the 1951 Signet Book release of Frances Clippinger’s Elinda (The Satellite). Text reads “She Knew All The Tricks – And Used Them”. There has been a recent interest in this era of paperbacks by historians and savvy art collectors, previous auction records by the leading cover artists such as Rudy Nappi, Raymond Pease and James Avati have been recently obliterated as selections from the Charles Martignette collection have found their way to auction.

Elinda The Satellite

Artist: Rafael DeSoto

A 1920s original oil on canvas painting by noted New York artist and muralist John Hemming Fry. Like his fellow muralists Eugene Savage and Edwin H. Blashfield, Fry created epic imagery in a dreamscape romanticized style, borrowing freely from classical Greek, Celtic and Roman folklore and imagery. This mythological trilogy on death and dying features three separate vignettes painted in subdued blue and steel gray tones against a background of ancient Northern European hills. A flowing, lyrical, sometimes abstracted composition that also incorporates elements of the contemporaneous Dada and Surrealist movements. An inventive and decorative large antique oil painting that retains its original handsome gesso frame, and is verso inkstamped by the artist.

A Celtic Tragedy

Artist: John Hemming Fry

A rare surviving cover painting by JW Scott, created for a yet unidentified Western pulp publication. A gritty old west scene of a group of cowboys reloading and preparing to fire above a rugged desert pass. The artist created this utilizing an impasto technique that brings a tension and urgent intensity to the Americana Western genre classic. Illustration Magazine recently devoted a large portion of issue #14 on the life and works of John Walter Scott, who worked during the 1930s creating numerous and stylistically diverse pulp covers, the verso canvas notes this was a cover for a “Sept 8 Western,” possibly referring to the “Complete Western Book” or “Wild Western Novels” both of which commissioned covers by Scott.

The Calico Kid

Artist: J. W. Scott

This impactful and eye-catching original pin up oil-on-board by Gil Elvgren was created for a roadside billboard. A pretty blond Elvgren girl who has just stepped out of a swimming pool enjoys a long tall cool one in this classic good-girl example of breweriana advertising art. Painting comes with the original posed double weight photograph of the model taken by Elvgren, and is pictured on page 237 of the monograph “Gil Elvgren All His Glamorous American Pin-ups” (plate 582), written by Charles Martignette and Louis K. Meisel.

A Cool One

Artist: Gil Elvgren

Art Frahm pushes the boundaries of cheesecake pin-up in this scandalous and daring oil on canvas. Titled “Oooh, Is There a Man in the House?” this late 1940s Goes Litho calendar commissioned pin-up painting features a brunette in shockingly sheer negligee peeking around the corner in a brazen mix of apprehension and curiosity. This winsome brunette exhudes a level of erotic sophistication not always seen in the post-World War II pin up world.

Oooh, Is There a Man In the House?

Artist: Art Frahm

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.

Metamorphosis of Beauty

Artist: Paul Swan

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