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Grapefruit Moon Gallery

Original Art from the Grand Age of American Illustration

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Brown & Bigelow

      This is a beautiful, unique, and rare preliminary graphite drawing by Gil Elvgren for the completed Brown & Bigelow calendar artwork titled “Modern Venus.” This loose, fluid sketch shows a classic Elvgren nude pin-up girl seated in a draped studio setting surrounded by flowers and holding draped fabrics and ribbons. Gil Elvgren […]

Modern Venus Preliminary Sketch

Artist: Gil Elvgren

Filed Under: Pin-Up & Glamour Art, Sorry, It's Sold
Tagged With: Brown & Bigelow, Calendar, Charcoal, drawing, Gil Elvgren, nude, pin up, Preliminary, Sketch
Added to Gallery: June 15, 2015

      This is a beautiful, unique, and rare preliminary graphite drawing by Gil Elvgren that shows the behind-the-scenes process that the artist went through while coming up with and subsequently presenting ideas to Brown & Bigelow for potential calendar artwork. This includes Elvgren’s handwritten notations in the bottom right of the drawing to […]

Brown & Bigelow Preliminary Sketch

Artist: Gil Elvgren

Filed Under: Pin-Up & Glamour Art, Sorry, It's Sold
Tagged With: Brown & Bigelow, Calendar, Charcoal, drawing, Gil Elvgren, pin up, Preliminary, Sketch
Added to Gallery: June 15, 2015

A fresh-faced and fresh to market large format pin-up pastel illustration by the father of American pin-up, Rolf Armstrong, titled I’ll Say So. This flirtatious bathing beauty darling is one of the artist’s most iconic and popular enduring images. Created at the zenith of Armstrong’s artistic powers, this sassy brunette has a laser beam of a smile, and a sarong that […]

I’ll Say So

Artist: Rolf Armstrong

Filed Under: Pin-Up & Glamour Art, Sorry, It's Sold
Tagged With: 1940s, Brown & Bigelow, original calendar art, original illustration art, Original pastel, pin up, Rolf Armstrong, The Golden Gallery
Added to Gallery: February 28, 2015

Rolf Armstrong created this Western-themed pin-up cowgirl pastel for the Brown & Bigelow Calendar Company in the early 1950s. The adorable Americana image was published as a calendar with the titles Come And Get It!, and Soups On! This original artwork has tremendous electric cobalt blue coloring as the artist captured the last fleeting minutes of light, imagining a dreamy, well-realized, wide […]

Come And Get It!

Artist: Rolf Armstrong

Filed Under: Pin-Up & Glamour Art, Sorry, It's Sold
Tagged With: 1950s, Brown & Bigelow, cowgirl, Jewel Flowers, original calendar art, Original pastel, Rolf Armstrong, western americana
Added to Gallery: February 26, 2015

    A fresh to the market, sexy and spirited Gil Elvgren oil painting created in 1952 for The Brown & Bigelow Calendar Company and published under the title Some Help!(Down,Boy). In this view of the model as artist, a curvy brunette in Parisian inspired attire is interrupted in her quest to create her masterpiece by the antics of […]

Some Help!

Artist: Gil Elvgren

Filed Under: Pin-Up & Glamour Art, Sorry, It's Sold
Tagged With: 1950s, american, Brown & Bigelow, Gil Elvgren, original calendar art, pin up, risque, The Golden Gallery
Added to Gallery: December 27, 2014

    Wouldn’t You Like To Know… is a large sultry original published pin-up calendar painting by the prolific and important American artist Fritz Willis. Willis was the last true star pin-up artist of the old guard, when illustrative pin-up reigned supreme in men’s magazines and calendars. The artist worked during the very tail end of the […]

Wouldn’t You Like To Know…

Artist: Fritz Willis

Filed Under: Pin-Up & Glamour Art, Sorry, It's Sold
Tagged With: 1960s, Brown & Bigelow, erotic, Fritz Willis, nude, opera gloves, original calendar art, pin up, risque, The Golden Gallery
Added to Gallery: December 1, 2014

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) […]

Ahoy

Artist: Earl Moran

Filed Under: Pin-Up & Glamour Art, Sorry, It's Sold
Tagged With: 1930s, art deco, Brown & Bigelow, Earl Moran, Great Depression, navy, pin up, risque, sailor
Added to Gallery: December 1, 2014

    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 […]

The B & B Girl

Artist: Rolf Armstrong

Filed Under: Pin-Up & Glamour Art, Sorry, It's Sold
Tagged With: art deco, Brown & Bigelow, original calendar art, pastel, pin up, risque, Rolf Armstrong, The Golden Gallery
Added to Gallery: October 14, 2014

A gorgeous and very detailed framed preliminary graphite sketch by the legendary American pin-up artist Gil Elvgren, which was used in the making of the 1955 Brown & Bigelow calendar “Waiting For You”. As part of his process, Elvgren would pose a live model in his home studio and create a series of graphite sketches […]

Waiting for You Sketch

Artist: Gil Elvgren

Filed Under: Pin-Up & Glamour Art, Sorry, It's Sold
Tagged With: 1950s, Brown & Bigelow, Gil Elvgren, Myrna Hansen, original calendar art, pin up, risque, Sketch
Added to Gallery: October 14, 2014

    A large format, tightly rendered preliminary charcoal and pastel pin-up illustration created for the Brown & Bigelow Calendar Company, the finished pastel was titled That’s A Deal. It is boldly signed and dated 1947, a fine offering by the prolific American pin-up artist Rolf Armstrong. The Stan to whom the piece is inscribed is […]

That’s A Deal

Artist: Rolf Armstrong

Filed Under: Pin-Up & Glamour Art, Sorry, It's Sold
Tagged With: 1940s, Brown & Bigelow, original calendar art, original illustration art, pin up, Rolf Armstrong
Added to Gallery: October 13, 2014

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