american

Simply stated, Thanks for the Orchid, is the finest Joyce Ballantyne artwork to come on the market. Commissioned by Brown & Bigelow in 1955, the luminous quality of the image and the detail and texture of the brush strokes display the impact of Elvgren’s teachings and collaboration on Ballantyne, if they do not indeed betray the hand of Gil Elvgren. Ballantyne worked closely with Elvgren for the better part of a decade, and it has often been suggested that he ghost painted some of her best work.

Thanks for the Orchid

Artist: Joyce Ballantyne

A comical yet masterful charcoal illustration titled “The American Girl and Why” by gifted and prolific New York City illustrator James Montgomery Flagg. This bawdy nude was likely used to illustrate a 1930s edition of the Lamb’s Club Monthly Magazine. The Lamb’s Club was established in 1874 as America’s first professional theatrical club. Renowned artists such as James Montgomery Flagg, Howard Chandler Christy, Hubert Vos, Robert Reid, and Everett Raymond Kinstler created paintings for this fraternal group that fell into two general categories; the Shepherds’ (Presidents’) portraits, and the nudes.

The American Girl and Why

Artist: James Montgomery Flagg

A rare surviving cover painting for the long running Motor Magazine title which evolved alongside the car industry from the very early years of automobilia through the machine age of progress and invention. Robinson executed these light-hearted Americana views for this Hearst title from the 1920s through the 1950s, this work appeared as the cover for the September 1930 issue. Here, a hard working garage hand is shown using a different sort of elbow grease to pry loose a coin from a tightwad couple by explaining the workings of “Ellbo – A Super Automotive Polish”.

A Little Elbow Grease

Artist: Robert Robinson

Working within the gritty and near-apocalyptic style of the ashcan school, Paul Raphael Meltsner captures here the shimmying decadence of movement that defined Depression-era burlesque, as well as the art form’s manner of dehumanizing both performer and patron. Though brazenly showcasing her human form, the dancer in the foreground hides her face from the canvas, and the audience recedes into the merest suggestion of faces represented merely as forms. This is a moving and masterful artwork, reminiscent of the works of Everett Shinn, a contemporary of Meltsner’s.

The Faceless Crowd

Artist: Paul Meltsner

An original 1962 oil on canvas by Gilette Elvgren commissioned by the Brown & Bigelow Calendar Company and published under the titles “Just Right”,”Hat’s Nice” and “The Eyeds of March”. This sexy pin-up masterwork explores the silk stockings & garters scenario for which the artist is best known. A brunette Elvgren girl admires her wiles in an aptly named vanity mirror in this provocative over the shoulder derriere exposed creation. For those of you not keeping track, recent auctions have seen Elvgren’s pin-up works for Brown & Bigelow topping $200,000.00 on three recent occasions. The high water mark of $262,900.00 was seen at Heritage Auctions June 5th, 2008 sale in Dallas Texas (Lot #66097).

Just Right

Artist: Gil Elvgren

A bizarre and other-wordly rare surviving pulp cover painting by Harold W. McCauley for the October 1949 edition of “Amazing Stories”. A lurid and menacing, yet strangely beautiful illustration for the story “Tiger Women of Shadow Valley” by Berkeley Livingston. Story caption reads “There Was Death In Her Embrace”. This inspired work perfectly captures the luminous commercial technique and painterly elements of a successful Haddon Sundblom “Sundblom Shop” graduate and disciple in collision with pin-up girl, erotic science fiction pulp culture.

Tiger Woman of Shadow Valley

Artist: Harold McCauley

A searingly seductively blonde takes the stand in this hard boiled, pulp fiction inspired 1949 pin-up painting by Al Buell. Working for the Louis F. Dow calendar company under the pseudonym Al Leslie (Leslie was the artist’s middle name), Buell created this leggy, impish bad girl, a scandalous vixen reminiscent of the defiant film noir heroines who graced the screen in this post-war period.

Case Dis-missed

Artist: Al Buell

Hidden within the lush romanticism of Nell Brinkley’s beautiful pen & ink comic illustration “Cupid Catching Butterflies” is a forward thinking depiction of the new flapper woman of the 1920s. In pearls and marcel wave, the bow-lipped brunette sits besides a winged cupid who is drawing heart shaped butterflies nearer and nearer to her net. The Brinkley girl, as these iconic idealized beauties came to be known, will have no trouble catching a beau in this scene.

Cupid Catching Butterflies

Artist: Nell Brinkley

Six Brinkley girls, each with distinct style and personality, are shown in a classroom, preparing to take their knowledge of the geography of beauty out into the wider world. A map, at the time, was slang for a beautiful face, and there is no question that these maps would lead to men’s hearts across the country. Created as a stand alone cartoon for an unidentified Hearst publication, this pen & ink on board illustration contains all the elements that made Nell Brinkley the pre-eminent female cartoonist of the early 20th century.

A Map of the Heart

Artist: Nell Brinkley

A lurid, action filled, original pulp cover oil on canvas by Harry Lemon Parkhurst / H. L. Parkhurst, one of the premier artists creating spicy pulp imagery for Culture Publications during the 1930s – 40s. This work illustrates “It’s Your Funeral” by Robert A. Garron and was used as the cover for the June 1941 issue of Private Detective. Surviving pulp paintings for this title and by this artist are scarce and this painting has it all; action, danger, drama, menace and movement.

It’s Your Funeral

Artist: H. L. Parkhurst

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