exoticism

An exceedingly scarce original mixed media work by L. Goddard used as a published calendar by The American Art Works Calendar Company, Coshocton Ohio in 1931 as Song of the Nile. “L. Goddard” was the pseudonym for a pair of enterprising artists L.G. Woolfenden, a successful Detroit area commercial photographer, and Rudolphe/ Rudolph Ingerle a Vienna born fine art landscape artist who lived and exhibited at museums and galleries in Chicago after the turn of the last century. Their collaborative efforts resulted in some of the finest and most spectacular images in the Calendar Art genre. The pair was known for fantasy-laden Depression-era escapist themes: Indian Maidens, Gypsies, Salomes, Art Deco Egyptian Beauties and Grecian Goddesses posed in vivid and evocotive Maxfield Parrish -esque dreamscapes.

Song of the Nile

Artist: L. Goddard

A haunting and epic large scale finely detailed and tonally impacting oil on canvas painting by Charles E. Chambers. An Orientalist Black Market alter scene that utilizes ochre and umber tones in a dark and menacing suspense filled manner. This was an interior illustration for “Sons” the second book in the Good Earth trilogy by Pulitzer Prize winning author Pearl S. Buck. This eerie and emotionally powerful image illustrates a pivotal scene in which the Wang family, having lost their fortune through opium promiscuity, is forced to sell their village estate and its contents, in a black market auction of sorts.

Before the Altar

Artist: Charles Edward Chambers

A kinetic and surrealist hypnotic work showing an African Fertility Dance that likely was a proposed cover for The American Weekly magazine, for which the artist was active in the 1940s. Inscribed Property of Andre Durenceau lower right; a jarring work by one of our favorite avant-garde art deco era illustrators. Nicely matted and framed behind glass in a period frame.

The Fertility Dance

Artist: Andre Durenceau

A haunting original watercolor on board verso stamped for use by The Saturday Evening Post by acclaimed American illustrator Henry Soulen. From a pre-air travel era in American popular culture when tastes ran towards the exotic, foreign and mysterious. Nicely framed in a period gesso gold wood frame.

Interior Orientalist Scene at an Altar

Artist: Henry Soulen

A deftly rendered, intricate, highly decorative oil on canvas painting by noted Brandywine School illustrator Arthur E. Becher, a student of Howard Pyle. An East Indian Minstrel performs magic feats to the delight of his adoring harem in this Orientalist Golden Age of Illustration depiction. Becher’s work appeared in numerous magazine titles after the turn of the last century; Scribner’s and Leslie’s most notably. He also created full color bookplates for such titles as “Long Live the King” and an 1914 adaptation of Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven” by P.F. Collier & Sons.

Minstrel Entertains a Harem

Artist: Arthur Becher

Grapefruit Moon Gallery is ecstatic to offer the original pair of carved Hondurous Mahogany decorative column panels that were built for the tavern in Hollywood California’s legendary Masquers Club on 6735 Yucca Street. These Afro-American nymphs were carved by the noted WPA muralist and woodcarver Stuart Holmes. We purchased these with the two large original Henry Clive Masquers Club mural paintings we offered and sold earlier this year.

Masquer’s Club Nude Panels

Artist: Stuart Holmes

A luminous and sensational oil on canvas by Charles Edward Chambers, a masterful magazine and advertising illustrator of the jazz age. Chambers created this remarkable, highly sensuous Polynesian enchantress scene as a commissioned interior magazine illustration, likely for Cosmopolitan where he was under exclusive contract for many years. This uninhibited and erotic island dance scene is one of Chambers’ finest paintings, and a masterful example of early 20th century exoticism in illustration.

Fire Dancer

Artist: Charles Edward Chambers

Grapefruit Moon Gallery is delighted to offer this recently unearthed George Jerome Rozen pulp painting featuring the Shadow in dramatic confrontation. Featured as the cover of the September 15, 1936 edition of Street and Smith’s long running series “The Shadow,” this is an important offering an exceedingly scarce surviving original pulp cover painting from the golden age of illustration. Recently uncovered from a Pennsylvania estate, as collectors will lament, original cover paintings from The Shadow prove near impossible to locate.

The Shadow In Jibaro Death

Artist: Jerome Rozen

A well rendered and rare surviving 1920s original oil on board illustration by the prolific New York artist Charles M. Relyea. Featuring an art deco Indian Maiden this is a fine example of American calendar art and was a widely published image titled “Chums” which evokes the allure of the Indian Maiden and wonderfully captures the Depression-era popular fascination with exotic-themed escapism.

Chums

Artist: Charles Relyea

An original gouache on board created for the May 1962 edition of Male Magazine, illustrating “The Daring GI Raider Who Saved Our New Guinea Stronghold”. A large, finely rendered scene depicting a gun battle, with requisite yet inexplicable scantily attired native babes, as per the norm of the bizarre and lowbrow world of “The Sweats.”

New Guinea GI Raider

Artist: Mort Künstler