Original Art from the Grand Age of American Illustration
A skillfully executed interior illustration for a serialized story by Pearl S. Buck titled China Gold which ran in Collier’s Magazine from February 7-April 18, 1942. Caption reads: ” Father Valerian came out from the chapel at once and led the wounded men to the hospital “. A large crisply-rendered oil on canvas mounted on board. Martha Sawyers artwork is in the Frank Gehry-designed Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis.
Artist: Martha Sawyers
Price: SOLD
A moody and stirring work by Alton S. Tobey lamenting the loss of souls on February 3rd 1943 in the icy waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Work commemorates the lives of four World War II chaplains who made the ultimate sacrifice to save others as their stricken ship went down after coming under attack from German torpedo fire.
Artist: Alton Tobey
Price: Sold
American illustrator Charles Bosseron Chambers created this large majestic portrait of Escamillo from the opera Carmen in the early 20th century.
Artist: Charles Bosseron Chambers
Price: Sold
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
Price: Sold
A macabre and dark highly inventive large format gouache illustration painting by Harrison Fisher used as a full color book plate in the 1907 edition of “A Dream of Fair Women” by Lord Alfred Tennyson. In this scene our maiden fair has just completed lent and prepares to give the devil his due and go out ballroom dancing in revealing for the day, corseted attire. This is a classic Harrison Fisher painting and a wonderful and historically impactful example of late Victorian period imagery where traditional customs are seen colliding with a less restrained, more promiscuous Edwardian vision of femininity.
Artist: Harrison Fisher
Price: Sold
A large signed and dated 1917 oil on canvas by Margaret Lindsay Williams, the important Royal Academy award winning Welsh artist. Williams has the distinction of being the lone artist to have had a studio in Westminster Abbey. Along with her darkly beautiful fine art, she painted portraits of Queen Alexandria and The Prince of Wales. In 1922, amidst much hoopla, she was brought to the US to paint President Harding’s portrait. This remarkable large work bears its label from a 1917 London’s Royal Academy exhibition. This is an important large decorative dark masterwork from an artist of the utmost historical significance.
Artist: Margaret Lindsay Williams
Price: Sold
An exquisite stylized, modernist, French art deco mixed media work in subdued muted tones by Edouard Sureau. In pastel and gold gilt paint, this features a delicately rendered muse with halo enraptured by a musical lyre. The top of the instrument forms a cross and the figure itself forms an angelic allegory, of the style popular in the art deco decorative arts. Work is signed and in a fine state of preservation nicely matted, framed, and ready to hang.
Artist: Edouard Sureau
Price: Sold
A large allegorical oil on stretched canvas, created for a 1919 Edition Of Randolph Hearst’s Hearst Magazine. Titled ” In The Year Of Our Lord”. A handsome near nude angel in the midst of a gathering of the wretched in a Book of Revelations inspired scene. This mythic and richly iconic humanist, sensuous, yet spiritual art is the genre Charles Allan Winter helped develop. This is a deeply moving and emotionally raw published original painting by this leading artist.
Artist: Charles Winter
Price: S O L D
Grapefruit Moon Gallery is proud to offer several scarce original paintings from the American Illustrator Charles Bosseron Chambers, including this large, dazzling, and spiritually evocative work titled Guardian Angel and Boy. Compositionally, this is a complex, stark, and questioning work. Thematically, the young boy–holding a model airplane–represents the machine age and ongoing industrialization. The angel is shown in a soft focused diffused and ethereal otherwordly world, while the boy is almost photo-realist in appearance. Their interaction calls into question the relationship between modernity and spirituality. Oil is titled on verso and framed in a wonderful carved gold gesso frame.
Artist: Charles Bosseron Chambers
Price: Sold
I am proud to be able to offer this highly stylized and orientalist take on the beheading of John the Baptist, as depicted by C. Bosseron Chambers, the famed illustrator of epic and Christian scenes who was dubbed the religious Rockwell. Chambers’ “Light of the World” image was as famous and popular a print as Maxfield Parrish’s “Daybreak.” This dramatic scene, in wonderful period frame with velvet matting, is an engaging and exceptional example of Chambers’ gift of rendering religious scenes in a provocative and modern manner.
Artist: Charles Bosseron Chambers
Price: SOLD
