Grapefruit Moon Gallery

Original Art from the Grand Age of American Illustration

art nouveau

A rare surviving c. 1910 large pastel illustration by the well listed and prolific illustrator Frederick Duncan. The sporty yet flirty glamour girl co-ed with a school book and a tennis racket personifies the socially progressive, daring and active woman who was coming into fashion as the voluptuous ideal of the Victorian woman of means waned. Works like this by Duncan, a cover artist for The Saturday Evening Post, popularized this independent, carefree vision of womanhood.

Breezy Co-Ed with Tennis Racket

Artist: Frederick Duncan

A delicately rendered high society Belle Epoque turn of the century Venice Italy gondola scene . Most likely an interior illustration for The Saturday Evening Post, as Wright was a weekly contributor there. Wright was born in 1872 and a member of the National Academy. He founded an artistic community in Westport, CT, and his works are in numerous museums and galleries . He is listed in Who’s Who in American Art, Davenports, the Artists Bluebook and The Illlustrator in America by Walt Reed.

Gondola in Venice

Artist: George Hand Wright

From the estate of legendary Ziegfeld Follies photographer Alfred Cheney Johnston comes this beautiful portrait of Follies showgirl Barbara Dean. Noted illustrator J. Knowles Hare was commissioned by impresario Flo Ziegfeld to create pastel illustrations of his glorified American girls based upon the the sittings between Johnston and the showgirls.

Ziegfeld Follies Beauty Barbara Dean Portrait

Artist: J. Knowles Hare

From the estate of legendary Ziegfeld Follies photographer Alfred Cheney Johnston comes this portrait of Follies showgirl Naomi Johnston. Noted illustrator J. Knowles Hare was commissioned by impresario Flo Ziegfeld to create pastel illustrations of Ziegfeld’s glorified American girls as they were captured by photographer A.C. Johnston, for a variety of display and publicity uses. The finished pastel […]

Naomi Johnson Ziegfeld Follies Portrait

Artist: J. Knowles Hare

A rare surviving pastel by the prolific and inventive early pin-up artist James Ross Bryson. Bryson defined Art Nouveau feminine beauty with his Edwardian views of corseted and lavishly attired, erotic, and bold anti-Victorian maidens. A staff artist for the Thos. D Murphy calendar co., his work also appeared on postcards, advertisements, and magazine covers. Bryson’s strong use of color, and stylized depictions of feminine glamour were heavily influential on art deco pastel artists like Rolf Armstrong, Earl Moran and Zoe Mozert.

Edwardian Beauty in Green

Artist: J. Ross Bryson

An exceedingly scarce and early Art Nouveau period original pastel portrait by Rolf Armstrong dated 1913. A crisply rendered serene take on a sad eyed solemn brown eyed lass. This pastel dates just one year later than his first published works of 1912 for Puck and Judge magazines. His signature had not yet become the stylized scripted font of which we are accustomed to seeing. I have yet to uncover the published version of this work, it was most likely commissioned as a sheet music cover or perhaps a cover for American Sunday Magazine, one of several periodicals willing to take a chance on the young emerging talent.

A Brown Eyed Girl

Artist: Rolf Armstrong

Henry Hutt created this whimsical Victorian winter scene painting for publication in Century magazine.  The image shows three demure maidens delighting in the gentle fall of snowflakes in an unexpected Christmas blizzard. The Chicago based illustrator was known at the turn of the 20th century for his trend-setting images “depicting the stylish, up-to-date female.” In 1908 Century compiled eighty of the artist’s most […]

Snowflakes

Artist: Henry Hutt

A handsome interior illustration by the Austrian-born female artist and illustrator Tracy Porter Rudd, which appeared as a bookplate with the title “But still I love to think in some Dream-Aiden She wanders…”, for the poem “Pearls” in The Ring of Love and Other Poems by Brookes More, Boston: Cornhill Publishing, (1923). The artist settled […]

She Wanders

Artist: Tracy Porter Rudd

Evoking Little Red Riding Hood with an ominous mood and maiden in brightly colored cape, this art nouveau winter-scape shows a determined maiden walking through a snow covered forest, a masterful example from belle époque artist extraordinaire Louis Rhead. Though Rhead, like many of the popular illustrators of the period, did illustrate a version of the […]

A Bountiful Harvest

Artist: Louis Rhead

 

Contact Grapefruit Moon Gallery