flapper

A hard-boiled and erotically posed masterful gallery portrait photograph of Winifred Shaw, from her role in the Rodger’s and Hart play “Simple Simon.” Shaw, a unique beauty with vixenish jazz age features, was soon to become a Hollywood musical performer in the wild Depression era productions of the 1930s. In this photograph by Roberts, with its naturalistic styling, and provocative smoking view, Winifred Shaw is shown in all her unique beauty and iconic eroticism. A rare example of the raw sexuality of jazz age theater photography.

Erotic Winifred Shaw Smoking

Artist: Roberts of Boston

A rare surviving early signed cover painting by Enoch Bolles for the October 1925 issue of Film Fun Magazine. A delightful modernist flapper girl envisioned as only Bolles could see, titled “Port ‘O Dreams”. Painting is initialed lower middle and in a fine state of preservation. Recent auction records for this artist have topped $30,000.00 and as collectors know his original cover works are very scarce.

Port ‘O Dreams

Artist: Enoch Bolles

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

A dazzling, large oil on canvas painting by frequent Saturday Evening Post cover artist Frederic Stanley. This wild prohibition-era, Charleston-dancing, Roaring Twenties flapper girl celebrates a Loew’s Theatre New York Policeman’s Ball Burlesque show. This is a wonderfully rendered artwork and a piece of New York history originally owned by Eve Green, the first wife of hotel magnate Harry Helmsley. Created for the cover of the program associated with this 1926 review, this important work showcases the 1920s jazz-age aesthetic of Manhattan’s bustling Vaudeville/Burlesque social scene.

The Policeman’s Ball, 1926

Artist: Frederic Stanley

This large, epically scaled, WPA-era beach scene is a wonderful fine art painting that takes the forms and themes of the regionalist art movement which was revolutionizing the American art scene in 1939 when this was created, and adapts them to the classic Connecticut shore. Recalling the work of Thomas Hart Benton, and George Bellows, this oil on board shows a group of friends looking on in a mix of shock and wonder at some roughhousing co-eds. Three men appear to have a bathing beauty and appear to be about to toss her into the ocean. Is it all in good fun, or is it something more sinister? By withholding the answer, the artwork takes the beach scene and gives it the provocative modernist spin and Ashcan School grittiness that defined art in the WPA regionalist era.

At The Beach

Artist: Alton Tobey

An early published and signed oil on canvas by John A. Coughlin for an as of yet unidentified Street & Smith pulp title. The hand of a New York City police officer is seen menacing a formally attired crowd in a surreal, chaotic action packed moment. A rare surviving original cover painting from The Golden Age of Illustration and a recent Pennsylvania estate find. Verso is titled “You Can’t Win” with a partial Street & Smith publishing label as seen. Relined and restretched and ready to frame and enjoy.

The House of Horror

Artist: John Coughlin

A delightful, whimsical early oil on board painting by Henry Clive, one of our favorite American Illustrators. This dates from 1916-1920 and was likely created as cover art for Randolph Hearst’s American Weekly Magazine. Featuring a cute and perky flapper in pirate girl garb, this a rare surviving example by this gifted and influential, prolific illustrator. Work is nicely framed in a period 1930s limed wood frame.

An Art Deco Pirate Girl

Artist: Henry Clive

This Raphael Kirchner Ziegfeld Follies pastel is a newly unearthed piece of New York City theater history, and a once in a generation find. Part of a suite of five illustrations which feature the erotic and luminous showgirls who starred in the legendary theater revue Ziegfeld Follies and made the name synonymous with images of the most beautiful, brazen and sensuous women in early 20th century New York. This portrait of Vivienne Segal hung in the lobby of the historic Century Theater until it shut its doors in 1936.

Vivienne Segal: Ziegfeld Follies Century Girl

Artist: Raphael Kirchner

A tremendous original late 1920s pen and ink drawing by Cardwell Higgins titled “A Delightful Page in the Record of My Existence”. The artist created five of these noir illustrative costumed art deco pen & ink drawings between the years of 1927 – 1929 that were later marketed as limited edition art prints under the guidance of Charles Martignette in 1979. This is assuredly the finest from this series of Aubrey Beardsley / Harry Clarke inspired fantasy scenes that the young Higgins executed. From the Estate of Charles Martignette, who championed the efforts of Cardwell Higgins and organized a one man show for the artist in 1983 shortly after the artist’s death in Hollywood Florida.

A Delightful Page…

Artist: Cardwell Higgins

A scarce and wonderful original gouache painting on illustration board by Anne Harriet Sefton a.k.a. Fish; this was the cover for The December 1921 Christmas edition of Vanity Fair Magazine. Work is in the humorous yet refined swinging youth style that came to personify the art deco jazz age. Painting is elaborately framed in a hand carved ornate antique wood frame and comes with a bound volume of 1921 Vanity Fair Magazines which includes the complete December 1921 volume.

Three Under The Mistletoe

Artist: Anne Harriet Fish

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