Original Art from the Grand Age of American Illustration
This delicately rendered, original, signed Pearl Frush pin-up illustration was published by the Gerlach-Barklow Calendar Company under the title “Miss Bermuda.” The nearly photo-realist watercolor appeared as part of a 1947 “Aqua Tour” series of bathing beauty images. Pearl Frush was a prolific and talented female artist who was active during the 1940s and 50s and worked […]
Artist: Pearl Frush
A curvy nude pin-up beauty in a red wide brimmed mid-century hat contently admires her reflection in this original pin-up painting by Harry Ekman. This was previously part of the collection of pin-up historian and author Charles Martignette and appears in the 1996 Taschen volume The Great American Pin-Up (page 153, plate #326) co-authored by Martignette and Louis K. […]
Artist: Harry Ekman
An important and poignant oil painting by the very well listed American artist and illustrator Francis Luis Mora. This large and expressive artwork was created as the frontispiece for the December 1918 issue of Red Cross Magazine. As published this was set atop moving poetry by Sara Teasdale reflecting on the mighty suffering and loss WWI had inflicted on our country’s women. A complete copy of the printed magazine with illustrated work is included in the sale.
Artist: Francis Luis Mora
This original published pin-up painting by Gil Elvgren appeared as a 1968 Brown & Bigelow calendar with the title “Swingin’ Sweetie”. A classic offering from the very tail end of the pin-up craze when the summer of love swept in a new style that wreaked havoc on earlier presentations of pin-up girl femininity. While some artists tried to respond to the […]
Artist: Gil Elvgren
A colorful and deftly rendered pin-up calendar pastel by Billy Devorss from 1942 titled A Real Leg Show, for the Brown & Bigelow Calendar Company. Devorss was never under contract with any single calendar company which allowed him to work for virtually all of the golden age of Illustration calendar firms, his work was very […]
Artist: Billy Devorss
An allegorical angelic scene by noted American fine artist, muralist, and illustrator Charles Allen Winter titled “Liberty Unchained.” Our research leads us to believe this was an interior magazine illustration for Cosmopolitan, which ran a series of spiritually relevant writings by Roycroft founder and early twentieth century philosopher Elbert Hubbard under the title “Little Sermons”–all illustrated by Winter. Several of Winter’s “Sermons” paintings were then reproduced in Hubbard’s own publication “The Fra.” From the estate of Charles Martignette, the sadly departed author of the “The Great American Pin-Up.”
Artist: Charles Winter
This 1937 dazzling and fresh (both in scene and technique) original mixed medium illustration painting by George Petty first appeared in Esquire Magazine as a full page color cartoon. It also was published as the first image of a spiral bound folio titled “Petty – A Portfolio from Esquire”. One of the crown jewels from the estate of Charles Martignette. The work is framed and matted behind glass and is a defining example of the lithe and modernist Art Deco Petty Girl.
Artist: George Petty
This 1953 deliriously sexy nude pin-up oil painting by Gil Elvgren for the Brown & Bigelow Calendar Company dates to the artist’s best period. This image was used in a deck of playing cards under the title Cee Bee (To Hold) Fascinating Figures and is pictured as figure 251 in Gil Elvgren All His Glamorous American Pin-Ups by Charles G. Martignette and Louis K. Meisel. From the Estate of Charles Martignette.
Artist: Gil Elvgren
This powerful example of golden age American illustration art playfully explores the tension between past and future presented in the early motor age. In this affecting unsigned image, the cliche of the Western Americana “Westward Ho” expansion scene is reinterpreted through the addition of an up-to-the-minute flapper girl in an adorable cloche hat. Beneath our heroine–who, along with her car, is checked out by a cowboy attired service attendant–text reads “Forms No Hard Carbon.”
Artist: Unknown
An original Gil Elvgren pin-up oil painting created in 1952 for the Brown & Bigelow Calendar Company of Saint Paul Minnesota. This curvy pin-up beauty appeared under the title “Hard To Suit,” a pun the copy department liked so much they used it again in 1954 to describe an Elvgren girl disrobing from her duck hunting garb to reveal lingerie. This is the prototypical Elvgren girl in a comically harrowing and skin revealing pin-up entanglement with the artist’s classic pursed lip expression that evokes surprise, embarrassment and provocation.
Artist: Gil Elvgren
