machine age

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.

Industry

Artist: Theodore Haupt

An inventive and unique hand crafted Holiday Seasons Greeting Card from the F. Burtis Clayton Company who we believe were a commercial airbrush art studio. The cover features a streamlined airbrushed painting of a modernist silhouetted cityscape with planes, trains and automobiles ushering in the machine age. Nicely framed, this opens to reveal text and New Year’s wishes as would a more typical holiday card.

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Artist: Unknown

An endearing, albeit slightly sinister, interior hearth and home Americana scene titled “Magic Spell” by noted calendar and pin-up artist Vaughan Bass. In this late 1940s work, the newly invented television takes center stage in a room of otherwise unsupervised children of all ages. All participants are transformed by the magic spell cast by the glowing console. The unpainted television screen surface would act as advertising placement in the finished calendar where text would be added to appear as though it was on the T.V.

Magic Spell

Artist: Vaughan Bass

Grapefruit Moon Gallery is ecstatic to offer the original pair of carved Hondurous Mahogany decorative column panels that were built for the tavern in Hollywood California’s legendary Masquers Club on 6735 Yucca Street. These Afro-American nymphs were carved by the noted WPA muralist and woodcarver Stuart Holmes. We purchased these with the two large original Henry Clive Masquers Club mural paintings we offered and sold earlier this year.

Masquer’s Club Nude Panels

Artist: Stuart Holmes

“Racing the Sun” is a rare surviving oil on stretched canvas painting by Ruehl Frederick Heckman, created for the Thomas D. Murphy Calendar Company. During the 1930s Heckman executed a series of five paintings for this storied calendar company, all featuring bold aviation progress and industrial themes. These works ponder the collision of the industrial revolution’s streamlined machine age aesthetic with previous generations traditional and more pastoral ways.

Racing The Sun

Artist: Ruehl Frederick Heckman

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.

Heat On Steel

Artist: Tyrone Comfort

A wonderfully inventive and unique early space-age (dated 1955) gouache calendar illustration by Bill Layne for the Royal 76 Gas Station chain. Showing the companies inventive and modernist machine age state of the art service station facilities. Uniquely embellished by the artist with his familiar elf figures and space exploration themes. Banner flag reads “Tickets Here For Cosmic Ray Absorber”. This is a tremendous futuristic work that should find traction among Petroliana collectors and space-age/atomic age lovers.

Space Age Royal 76 Petroliana

Artist: Bill Layne

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.

WPA Machinist

Artist: Alton Tobey

A deftly rendered cover painting for The American Magazine by Herbert Paus, who developed an inventive and entirely modernist, machine age, industrial aesthetic. A striking seaside beauty is depicted playing a concertina in this rare surviving original cover painting from the golden age of American illustration. Herbert Paus was a leading illustrator who contributed covers for Life, Collier’s, Leslie’s and the Woman’s Home Companion magazines.

Seaside with a Concertina

Artist: Herbert Paus

A strongly rendered, machine age/industrial revolution inspired modernist 1935 oil painting by Thomas Tyrone Comfort, used as the cover for The Los Angeles Herald & Express; Oct.19, 1936. Comfort worked as an art deco-era muralist and illustrator. His work evokes the spirit of the WPA movement, his brilliant career was cut short in 1939 when the artist passed away at the young age of 30.

Controlled Power

Artist: Tyrone Comfort

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