illustration

A topical newspaper illustration (presumably for the Hearst Newspapers) confronting the dilemma of Eugenics. In the 1910’s-1920’s the United States was faced with the question of whether individuals should marry with a mind towards creating superior babies through genetic family planning. This cartoon finds this notion farfetched and we see love conquering science to the shock and delight of a couple now free to live as their hearts command. A very sophisticated topical take on a pre-eminent question of the early 20th century. This is a fantastically rendered en grisaille style pen and ink drawing with highlights. En grisaille was a popular style in the early 20th century for illustrations created for reprinting. In a stylish contemporary fine gilded wood frame.

Satirical Eugenics Illustration

Artist: Gustav Michelson

A June bride gets unexpected company in this whimsical painting by Henry Clive, created as cover art for for the June 15, 1930 issue of The American Weekly, a syndicated supplement in William Randolph Hearst newspapers across the country. Part of the cover series “The Fashionable Working Girl” which showcased Great Depression-era flappers and gently satirized the social lives of independent city girls, this […]

The Bride

Artist: Henry Clive

A whimsical roaring twenties stylized Art Deco pen & ink illustration by John Held, Jr. of unknown publication usage. A stylish flapper girl in a cloche hat enlists this year’s dandy as her personal social secretary. Handsomely matted and framed under glass.

Her Social Secretary

Artist: John Held, Jr.

Nell Brinkley was known for her ability to personify the 1920s move towards modernity and to interpret Victorian tradition through the eyes of her flapper heroine, The Brinkley Girl. In this inspired and tremendously fun pen and ink illustration, a Brinkley bride-to-be reminisces about her carefree maiden days of wanderlust and freedom. Signed and dated in […]

The Bride

Artist: Nell Brinkley

This stunning oil on canvas painting by the illustrator F.R. Harper, presents a beautiful partisan French fighter looking over the ruins of a French village. Harper gained notoriety at the turn of the last century for his nostalgic and beautiful Indian Maiden images, and as World War I unfolded, he turned his attention to images like this which personified patriotic […]

Out Of The Rubble

Artist: F.R. Harper

This sparkling original oil on canvas by Robert George Harris appeared the December 1948 issue of McCall’s magazine, illustrating the story “When the Right One Comes Along” by Clara Wallace Overton. The long-running women’s magazine was known for its romantic fiction, and the hospital workplace love affair was a particularly popular subgenre. Here, the lovely nurse realizes the dashing compassionate doctor is […]

When The Right One Comes Along

Artist: Robert George Harris

An impacting gouache illustration painting by the prolific American artist Jules Gotlieb, for the November 25, 1951 issue of The American Weekly, a Randolph Hearst publication. This was part of an ongoing series about prehistoric times which the supplement ran in 1951. Other artists that worked for this long running title include Henry Clive, Willy […]

Indigenous Life

Artist: Jules Gotlieb

Public art in the 1930s is today synonymous with the Works Progress Administration–a New Deal Federal program that underwrote regionalist and modernist fine artists by commissioning their work for murals that can still be seen throughout the United States. Less often remembered is how private industries during the Great Depression and World War II became patrons of the […]

Art and Industry During World War II

It’s easy to see how much talent and passion artists working in America’s Golden Age of Illustration brought to their jobs, but we rarely have windows into the daily commitment to submitting work for consideration, and the accompanying rejection that was part of the illustrator life. For all but a few famous names like Maxfield Parrish and Norman […]

A Day in the Life of Illustrator Paul Strayer, 1918

An Art Deco era, golden age Henry Clive illustration painting that appeared as the cover for the June 11,1933 edition of The American Weekly, a Randolph Hearst publication. The magazine often commissioned Clive to create serialized images of enchantresses that shared a thematic thread. In this case, foreign beauties caught in the crossfire of cupid’s bow. A […]

Cupids – Dutch Girl

Artist: Henry Clive

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