Original Art from the Grand Age of American Illustration
A luminous and glowing, glamour girl painting by the well-listed, prolific pin-up illustrator and Hollywood portrait artist Edward Runci. This fine oil on canvas features a Haddon Sundblom / Gil Elvgren inspired color palette and painterly technique. A formally posed beauty queen with a little bit of mischief in her eyes, in white gloves and fur wrap with a purple orchid from an admirer.
Artist: Edward Runci
A spectacularly alluring, inquisitive and beautiful view of Myrna Loy, captured in her pre-code early career by the master of Hollywood photography George Hurrell. In a gentle sepia on a large format double weight semi-gloss paperstock, Hurrell captures the beauty of the young Myrna Loy, with her effortless art deco style, and emboldened flapper sensibility. This is blindstamped by Hurrell lower right, and inkstamped on verso. This is a hand printed gallery portrait never intended for distribution, and is a moving rare portrait.
Artist: George Hurrell
Before her tenure as the reigning queen of Hollywood society, and her long-standing position as mistress of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, Marion Davies was among the most beautiful of Florence Ziegfeld’s glorified American girls. Here, she is a delicate princess captured at the height of her beauty by Alfred Cheney Johnston, who had as much a part of creating the Follies reputation as Ziegfeld himself.
Artist: Alfred Cheney Johnston
An exquisitely posed, unusually delicate view of Myrna Loy, by Elmer Fryer, the Hollywood glamour photographer who had perhaps the best sense of modernist style and fashion. This unusual view features Loy in blonde wig in her role as Sophie the dancer in “Bride of the Regiment.” An early view of the star, who would come to be known for her sassy wit and hard nosed sexuality in the Nick & Nora Thin Man series.
Artist: Elmer Fryer
A spectacular view of Clara Bow in jazz age headscarf with streamlined modernist style, by George Hommel. Bow’s wizened eyes and cupid feature captured the nihilism and eroticism of the Lost generation, as well as the heart of the American moviegoing public, and vintage original stills of her remain highly collectible.
Artist: George Hommel
Carole Lombard, one of the finest actresses of the golden era of Hollywood film, is captured in all of her glamour in this promotional portrait for Paramount Pictures. In dramatic sequined gown, the platinum blonde beauty who captured the heart of America in the 1930s, and died tragically promoting the war effort in 1941, still captivates.
Artist: Unknown
The quintessential jazz baby, Joan Crawford is captured coyly beckoning at the viewer in this large format, double weight gallery photograph by Ruth Harriet Louise. The most important female photographer in Hollywood during the golden age of film, Louise is remembered for her ability to make the spirit of the art deco jazz age come alive.
Artist: Ruth Harriet Louise
This 1920s double weight original large format erotic sepia photograph of Ziegfeld Follies showgirl and flapper Tot Qualters is one of the most well preserved artifacts of the heyday of the jazz age showgirl extravaganza. In its original glassine sleeve, this features Qualters in ornate headdress, captured by Orval Hixon of the Hixon-Newman studios. Photographs from this era of the Ziegfeld Follies are particularly coveted, and views with this exquisite sense of style and costuming are among the most desirable and scarce.
Artist: Orval Hixon
The smoldering temper, and exotic sensuality of Lili Damita attracted as much attention in pre-code Hollywood as her films, and this Greta Garbo inspired photograph by Elmer Fryer captures her unusual attractions. This large format, double weight sepia gallery portrait features the French beauty in ornate art deco headdress, and displays Fryer’s sophisticated eye.
Artist: Elmer Fryer
This art deco stylized hatted view of Judy Garland was kept in the actress’s personal collection until her death. A charming portrait that showcases the joyful innocence which was essential to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s presentation of the icon (but which ran directly counter to her haunted personal life). This double weight, large format gallery portrait is a rarely seen still, and celebrates the style of the late 1930s as well as the unusual beauty of Garland.
Artist: Unknown
