Original Art from the Grand Age of American Illustration
A haunting Art Deco in period Pre-Raphaelite in aesthetic watercolor fine art painting by the well listed artist Axel Linus titled Leto And Apollo. A favored lover of Zeus, Leto is known in ancient Greek mythology as the ideal of maternal sacrifice and love. Mother to both Apollo and Artemis, Leto was tormented […]
Artist: Axel Linus
Patten Wilson, the British Art Nouveau illustrator and fine artist created this immaculately detailed and haunting watercolor on paper for use as frieze panel decoration for a high end wallpaper company. At the turn of the 20th century, lavishly decorated Victorian homes would feature rooms filled with fine art wall-coverings that recalled the symbolist mural […]
Artist: Patten Wilson
This remarkable image features a nude reclining maiden by one of our favorite Golden Age illustrators W.T. Benda. A dazzling composition, an intricate and technically adept graphite drawing with silver glittery paint highlighting the subject’s hair and face. Signed lower right and beautifully framed and silk matted behind glass in a hand carved gold leafed […]
Artist: Wladyslaw Benda
Legendary American pin-up illustrator Earl Moran was one of the first to discover a muse in the iconic Hollywood legend Marilyn Monroe. During the late 1940s Monroe famously worked as a pin-up model for the Blue Book agency, posing under her real name of Norma Jeane Dougherty. After Moran transitioned away from the hectic life of a calendar artist to focus on his fine art painting, he revisited Marilyn, who was by then a platinum blonde Hollywood bombshell, through an arrangement with The Aaron Brothers Galleries, Laguna Beach CA.
Artist: Earl Moran
An outstanding large oil painting by the well listed and prolific fine artist and illustrator Frederick Sands Brunner, this oil on canvas features a pretty red haired sunlit nude with an engaging smile and pretty figure with porcelain white skin gathering water at a stream. The verso bears a foil gallery label for Newman Galleries in Philadelphia where the artist exhibited and sold many of his his works in this genre.
Artist: Frederick Sands Brunner
Cubist Maidens is a lyrical and poignant original mixed medium fine art painting by the prolific and well remembered science fiction and pulp cover artist Virgil Finlay. Work is signed and dated lower left and again on the verso. Modernist and inventive in style, the work is executed in grease pencil and water color, with a scratchboard technique of cutting back into the drawing used to define the faces. This unusual example deftly shows the technical mastery and imagination of this important American illustrator.
Artist: Virgil Finlay
Grapefruitmoongallery is proud to offer one of 3 original commissioned large circular oil paintings that adorned the restaurant walls of Larue’s a legendary Hollywood, Sunset Blvd. haunt that was owned by gangster character actor Jack LaRue. Henry Clive was a frequent patron and close friend of LaRue, and this painting, titled Spirit of Capri was purchased directly from the restaurant about 45 years ago by the artist’s son Henry Clive O’Hara. In addition to being a prolific cover illustrator for Randolph Hearst’s American Weekly, Clive painted several large risque and attention garnering commissioned mural works for Hollywood landmarks like The Jade and The Masquers Club as well as LaRue’s.
Artist: Henry Clive
A technically proficient early surviving self portrait charcoal drawing of and by Rolf Armstrong,
capturing a slightly idealized version of the handsome square jawed athletic and rugged young artist who was also an avid boxer and sailor. Armstrong was 26 at the time of this self portrait and was about two years into his commercial illustration career, during these early years the artist used himself for several commissioned works requiring a male model. From estate of Mike Wooldridge, co-author of “Pin-up Dreams – The Glamour Art of Rolf Armstrong”.
Artist: Rolf Armstrong
Working within the gritty and near-apocalyptic style of the ashcan school, Paul Raphael Meltsner captures here the shimmying decadence of movement that defined Depression-era burlesque, as well as the art form’s manner of dehumanizing both performer and patron. Though brazenly showcasing her human form, the dancer in the foreground hides her face from the canvas, and the audience recedes into the merest suggestion of faces represented merely as forms. This is a moving and masterful artwork, reminiscent of the works of Everett Shinn, a contemporary of Meltsner’s.
Artist: Paul Meltsner
Doris Niles was a premiere ballerina and concert dancer, known primarily for her Spanish-inspired pieces, and one of the shining beauties of the New York stage. Her flamboyant continental costume and dramatically posed stance in this portrait by Nikolas Muray, capture the dancer’s unique and refined sensibility. Muray, one of the masters of the modern expressive style, chronicled the New York dance world in the art deco jazz age, and his expert eye is on display to fine effect in this seductive view.
Artist: Nickolas Muray
