Original Art from the Grand Age of American Illustration
Commercial Advertising Art by Harold McCauley In the 1960s, after a successful career as a pulp, and later, paperback cover artist, Harold McCauley was faced with the reality of a dwindling market for his brand of sci-fi and fantasy illustration. Moving away from freelance work, the artist found employment as a company illustrator for The […]
Artist: Harold McCauley
From renowned American illustrator Cardwell Higgins comes this pen & ink on artist’s paper illustration that was created for Eastern Airlines with a plane whizzing through the air showing the logo for the airlines by its tail–a logo that Higgins also designed. With progress-minded, art deco imagery, this aviation themed piece is framed alongside a portrait […]
Artist: Cardwell Higgins
Grapefruit Moon Gallery just unearthed a small collection of original Campbell’s Soup Kids illustrations. These appeared as print ads in countless American mainstream publications such as The Saturday Evening Post in the 1930s. In this offering a Dolly Dingle character Campbell’s Soup Kid is putting the finishing touches on his or her soapbox derby bi-plane early aviation age-inspired racing car. Nicely matted and framed behind glass and ready to hang.
Artist: School of Grace Drayton
The WPA artist and art deco designer Vladimir Yoffe created this smart and modern machine age commercial illustration as advertising for Pan Am World Airways. The imagery shows a dizzying map of the earth highlighted by the routes the early commercial airline offered. Today, the Russian/American artist is best remembered for his work for the New Deal […]
Artist: Vladimir Yoffe
Stockton Mulford created this compelling oil on canvas illustration of a daring aviatrix for the April, 1924 issue of Everybody’s Magazine. The art accompanied the interior story The Long Call, a Canadian Northwest rescue adventure story by Kathrene and Robert Pinkerton that centered on a fictional embodiment of the early 20th century independent woman. The story of Peggy Thorpe, who at […]
Artist: Stockton Mulford
A rare surviving aviation themed pulp cover painting by Stockton Mulford for the cover of Fawcett’s Battle Stories, August 1929 (thanks to Doug Clemons for the i.d.). In this dramatic image, a recently downed airplane smolders as the ejected American Air Force pilot, armed only with a wrench, engages in combat against a German, bayonet-wielding, WWI soldier. Aviation pulps appeared on news-stands in the 1920s as the horror of World War I began to fade from public memory leaving room for the development of heroic and mythic tales of soldiers and aviators. Until the start of the Second World War, the aviation pulps focused on these Great War-themed stories, but after 1941, their content switched to tales of glory from the front lines of WWII.
Artist: Stockton Mulford
An inventive and unique hand crafted Holiday Seasons Greeting Card from the F. Burtis Clayton Company who we believe were a commercial airbrush art studio. The cover features a streamlined airbrushed painting of a modernist silhouetted cityscape with planes, trains and automobiles ushering in the machine age. Nicely framed, this opens to reveal text and New Year’s wishes as would a more typical holiday card.
Artist: Unknown
“Racing the Sun” is a rare surviving oil on stretched canvas painting by Ruehl Frederick Heckman, created for the Thomas D. Murphy Calendar Company. During the 1930s Heckman executed a series of five paintings for this storied calendar company, all featuring bold aviation progress and industrial themes. These works ponder the collision of the industrial revolution’s streamlined machine age aesthetic with previous generations traditional and more pastoral ways.
Artist: Ruehl Frederick Heckman
A large, inventive oil on canvas by the well listed artist and illustrator Charles Shepard Chapman. A spirited look at the ongoing Industrial Revolution and progress minded upheaval of the 1920s with a focus on transportation. Pictured in the mist of streamlined modernist trains and bi-planes are antiquated horse and buggy carriages and river paddle boats. The artwork heralds the machine age and harnesses the art deco shapes, forms and exuberance that was infectious in the epoch before the stock market crash of 1929.
Artist: Charles Chapman
A typically action packed interior illustration gouache painting by Mort Kunstler for the April 1957 edition of Sports Afield Magazine. A large menacing polar bear in pre-global warming, shrinking ice cap terrain with a Cessna water landing small aircraft as the backdrop. Nicely matted and framed and in pristine condition. Issue of magazine included in sale, caption reads “Not now!” I screamed at him. Too Late. There was no sound of slug hitting flesh. Instead, it chopped through the fuselage and smashed into the motor…
Artist: Mort Künstler
