Original Art from the Grand Age of American Illustration
The sixth of ten 1939 mural designs by Mahlon Blaine, which were intended to become murals for the studio or showroom of noted New York City industrial designer Paul MacAlister. A vacuum tube headed, praying mantis-like robot battles a cowering nude goddess in the ongoing saga of the menace of industry. Marked on verso design #6, this comes beautifully matted and framed from the estate of Paul Ritter MacAlister.
Artist: Mahlon Blaine
Price: SOLD
The fifth of ten 1939 mural designs by Mahlon Blaine, which were intended to become murals for the studio or showroom of noted New York City industrial designer Paul MacAlister. In this scene our nude goddess pours flower petals into the mouth of a robotic machine as a Buckingham Palace Royal Guard on horse cleverly protects her modesty. The adjoining stone masonry watches on in amusement as a bird of pray hovers above tied from a high building rafter that frames the scene. An inspired visionary artwork in a red, white and blue Americana color palette. Marked on verso design #5, this comes beautifully matted and framed from the estate of Paul Ritter MacAlister.
Artist: Mahlon Blaine
Price: Sold
The fourth of ten 1939 mural designs by Mahlon Blaine, which were intended to become murals for the studio or showroom of noted New York City interior designer Paul MacAlister. In “The Toast of Manhattan” a nude goddess with serpents for hair pours a martini for a tuxedo clad robot as the adjoining stone masonry watches on disapprovingly. Even the tenements have eyes in this surrealist and inspired visionary artwork. Marked on verso design #4, this comes beautifully matted and framed from the estate of Paul MacAlister.
Artist: Mahlon Blaine
Price: Sold
The third of ten gouache paintings created by Mahlon Blaine in 1939 under the pseudonym G. Christopher Hudson, offering a dark and pessimistically erotic take on the skyscraper landscape that was taking over Manhattan. In this scene a nude Medusa like creature ball dances with a robot in a high wire styled act on scaffolding high above the city. Blaine treated each individual painting in the series as its own completed stand alone artwork, with painstaking detail and inspired yet terrifying imagery.
Artist: Mahlon Blaine
Price: Sold
In the late 1930s, avant garde illustrator Mahlon Blaine, working under the pseudonym G.Christopher Hudson created a series of illustrations which were intended to become murals for the studio or showroom of noted New York City interior designer Paul MacAlister. In this work, the second of the series, a mechanical bird menaces the Medusa-inspired nude goddess who cowers atop a stone robot in a patriotic American apple pie infused red, white and blue color palette.
Artist: Mahlon Blaine
Price: $6,500.00
In this work, the first of the series, and the image that was to greet visitors as they entered the room, a nude showgirl dancer does a sad burlesque, her shadow duplicated in silhouette in a Coney Island funhouse style. Both evoking and critiquing the sordid and semi-underground world of Depression-era girlie shows, the artwork lures the viewer into the underbelly of the city that is explored in the nine images that follow.
Artist: Mahlon Blaine
Price: $4,000.00
From a recent east coast estate auction, Grapefruit Moon Gallery is delighted to have acquired a previously unseen collection of American Expressionist oil paintings dating to the 1940s and executed in a WPA, Regionalist, and often times stark Ashcan School design aesthetic. These are the work of the important American photo-journalist Alfred Statler, […]
Artist: Alfred Statler
Price: Sold
An inventive and forward thinking “progress through industry” original gouache illustration painting by Theodore Haupt. This was commissioned by The New Yorker magazine and used as their May 2, 1931 cover. The imagery attempts to put a positive spin on the Great Depression using modernism, industry and the technological advances of the Machine Age as rallying points in this bustling New York City cityscape. Haupt illustrated forty four covers for The New Yorker between 1927 and 1933.
Artist: Theodore Haupt
Price: Sold
A stark, eerie, machine age/industrial revolution 1938 Works Progress Administration sponsored oil painting by Thomas Tyrone Comfort, this darkly modernist view titled “Heat on Steel” features a haunting view of an arc welder at work in a surrealist factory. This large scale painting was created as public art and exhibited by the Federal Arts Project in 1938 and retains its original verso label. 1938 marked the height of the WPA art movement, and Comfort was one of its promising talents, creating evocatively expressive, and moody visions of Depression era science and industry.
Artist: Tyrone Comfort
Price: S O L D
Featuring a Depression-era machinist at work creating a Pratt & Whitney aircraft engine, this 1940 artwork by WPA artist Alton Tobey combines the unusual muted palate and composition of the regionalist movement with the dystopian feel of the surrealists. This powerful oil on canvas was created for the East Hartford Pratt & Whitney plant, and presents a deeply moving picture of industrialism in the lead up to World War II.
Artist: Alton Tobey
Price: S O L D
