Original Art from the Grand Age of American Illustration
A haunting and menacing editorial political illustration by William Cotton, likely published in a late 1930s edition of Vanity Fair magazine. Pictured are the trio of Axis partners: Adolph Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Emperor Hirohito, with Hitler depicted as the larger and dominant evil force, strong-arming the other two dictators and controlling them as puppets. In […]
Artist: William Cotton
This 1949 Brown & Bigelow Calendar Company commissioned pin-up pastel is one of the finest examples by Earl Moran we have encountered. A redheaded heart-breaker on a then state of the art mid-century modern phone asks the viewer and the caller to “Remember Me?” in a classic pin-up entanglement loaded with double entendre. Earl Moran was a master of light and shadow and this large and commanding artwork is a monument to his talent.
Artist: Earl Moran
The Louis F. Dow Calendar Company of Saint Paul, Minnesota commissioned this pristine and rare surviving pin-up painting by Art Frahm for publication in their 1944 calendar line under the title “Pay Off.” The image shows an underdressed, impish redhead having an “oops” moment as she is drenched by the puppy she has just so carefully bathed. This painting is […]
Artist: Art Frahm
This breezy sailor girl, bathing beauty pin-up graced the cover of the July 24, 1937 edition of Liberty magazine, a popular long running Bernarr MacFadden publication. By the artist R.C. Kauffmann–a personal favorite of the gallery–this is a tremendously spirited, large format oil painting with spectacular zest and allure. Kauffmann is best remembered for his Saturday Evening Post covers as […]
Artist: R.C. Kauffmann
An intoxicating and erotic reclining nude by the well-listed artist Harold Mott-Smith. Born in Hawaii, Harold Mott-Smith was a painter who lived in Paris from 1894-1906. He studied at the Academie Julian with Jean Paul Laurens, and exhibited in 1894 with the Boston Art Club as well as Paris Salon. After returning to New York, Mott-Smith worked for GE, illustrating calendars and painting portraits of Thomas Edison. This captivating oil on canvas dates from his early Hawaiian career and showcases his sensuous style.
Artist: Harold Mott-Smith
Secure Cables is a moving and kinetic, exhibited, WPA aesthetic, signed and dated oil on canvas painting by the Scottish Artist Albert Gordon Thomas. This honors the hard working efforts of those who advanced industry and commerce during the dizzying years of the industrial revolution and machine age. This was exhibited in 1935 in Scotland at […]
Artist: Gordon Thomas
This Jean Oldham painting appeared as the cover for the April 1928 issue of The Dance magazine, showcasing the Spanish dancer and showgirl Trini in her costume from the Broadway hit “Take the Air.” The now-forgotten star shows off her opulent style and “famous feet” against a Moorish skyline in this art deco jewel of a painting. The Dance was a leading title during […]
Artist: Jean Oldham
A mixed media gouache and pastel portrait work by the gifted and fondly remembered Russian Jewish artist Alexander Davidovich Ziliouk – Sacha Zaliouk. The artist moved to Paris in 1912 and studied at the Paris Ecole des Beaux-Arts. He contributed jazz-age art deco illustrations for many of the notorious French Roaring twenties flapper girl magazines such as Fantasio, Sourire, Le Journal Amusant, La Vie Parisienne and the more scabrous Paris-plaisirs. He set up a studio in the cities Montparnasse area and was a well known and often exhibited avant-garde artist as seen by this haunting and evocotive unique portrait of a lovely young Parisian.
Artist: Sacha Zaliovk
A kinetic and surrealist hypnotic work showing an African Fertility Dance that likely was a proposed cover for The American Weekly magazine, for which the artist was active in the 1940s. Inscribed Property of Andre Durenceau lower right; a jarring work by one of our favorite avant-garde art deco era illustrators. Nicely matted and framed behind glass in a period frame.
Artist: Andre Durenceau
A large, dazzling, spicy pulp, science fiction, space girl painting by Gabriel Mayorga, which appeared on the cover of the second issue of Super Science Stories in May, 1940. Very loosely illustrating the interior story “Juice” by L. Sprague De Camp, whose slug is worth repeating here in full… They discovered a new game in Lunar Center – a form of ping-pong, […]
Artist: Gabriel Mayorga
