Original Art from the Grand Age of American Illustration
A stunning, patriotic World War II era pastel by famed American illustrator Bradshaw Crandell. This appeared as the cover of the April, 1942 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine. Intriguingly, posed in the Navy uniform was a young Yale Law student and male model named Gerald Ford, who would go on to be the 38th president of the United States. The pretty […]
Artist: Bradshaw Crandell
The Song Without Words is an original Orientalist genre painting by the American artist and illustrator Daniel Content which appeared as a full page color plate in the May 1937 issue of The Ladies Home Journal. Illustrating a story by famed early frontier woman Rose Wilder Lane, the image was published along side a caption […]
Artist: Daniel Content
A costumed flapper girl, dressed to the nines in jazz-age fineries at a masquerade ball, is seductively caught in the light of a romantic full moon in this oil on canvas by J. Walter Wilkinson. The artist was a prominent and revered American illustrator, and we presume this to be a magazine cover for an […]
Artist: J. Walter Wilkinson
A boldly colored and tightly rendered likely preliminary pastel pin-up illustration by Earl Moran, showing an art deco sailor girl living the life aquatic. This dates to the late 1930s, as the outbreak of war in Europe caused both a premonition of America’s eventual involvement into what would become World War II, and a boost in industrial production (particularly shipbuilding) […]
Artist: Earl Moran
The Intruder is a rare surviving oil on canvas American Impressionist painting created in 1921 by Arthur Prince Spear. This underwater sea nymph scene was exhibited that year at Boston’s St. Botolph Club, and the Chicago area Rosenbach Galleries and The House of O’Brien, where it is believed to have been sold. Reviewing the St. […]
Artist: Arthur Prince Spear
An electric in color palette & execution original exhibited pastel by the Boston area artist Arthur Spear, who was equally adept with pastel and oils. This is titled on the verso The Young Diana in the artist’s hand, and was exhibited and likely sold at the Chicago gallery House of O’Brien during the 1920s. The image […]
Artist: Arthur Prince Spear
A haunting Art Deco in period Pre-Raphaelite in aesthetic watercolor fine art painting by the well listed artist Axel Linus titled Leto And Apollo. A favored lover of Zeus, Leto is known in ancient Greek mythology as the ideal of maternal sacrifice and love. Mother to both Apollo and Artemis, Leto was tormented […]
Artist: Axel Linus
One of the finest pastel pin-up illustrations ever created by Rolf Armstrong for the Brown & Bigelow Calendar Company, this appeared in 1940 with the title “The B & B Girl”. The model was Margery Crampton, Armstrong’s modernist streamlined muse and frequent sitter throughout the 1930s and early 1940s. Shortly after this pastel was […]
Artist: Rolf Armstrong
Dating to the mid-1920s, this lavishly colored and provocatively composed gouache painting by the highly regarded illustrator Willy Pogany is a rare surviving example of his commissioned silent film artwork. During the roaring ’20s, Pogany, known as one of the most prolific and inventive artists of the decade, worked with a number of […]
Artist: Willy Pogany
A 1940s pin-up oil painting on masonite panel showing an erotically rendered on the wrong end of a situation bathing beauty. A blonde, young heart-breaker is seen blowing up an inner tube while her own pneumatic charms prove too much for her bikini top; focused on her task she seems unfazed by the classic cheesecake “oops” moment. […]
Artist: Irving Winer
