Original Art from the Grand Age of American Illustration
A large, art deco era, original pastel on illustration board by the well listed and prolific American Illustrator Warde Traver. This is an as of yet unidentified calendar or magazine commission. Image features a proud brightly colored deftly rendered peacock showing his bright plumage. Work is matted and framed in period green painted wood frame.
Artist: Warde Traver
A dark and eerily erotic oil on canvas nude with orientalist slant. The work has a verso dedication by the artist Fred Page Craft dated 1926. An exotic Moorish/East Indian Orientalist Princess depicted as a “spicy pulp” blood boiling enchantress. Craft worked as cover artist for pulp magazine Black Mask and contributed a cover for Country Gentleman in 1923. This appears to have been created as a cover for an as of yet identified spicy pulp publication. In the dedication, the artist says of the work “This little half cast might be the finest thing I shall ever paint.”
Artist: Fred Page Craft
A beautiful and delicately rendered oil on canvas of a formal flapper girl in glamorous evening winter wear. An original oil on stretched canvas by the noted female artist and illustrator Edna Crompton. This was used as cover art for The Redbook Magazine February 1925. The artist also worked prolifically creating calendar art glamour images throughout the 1920s.
Artist: Edna Crompton
A delicate and dazzling example of Wladyslaw Theodor Benda’s portraiture with an exotic stylized Benda Girl. A mixed media work, on a verso addressed illustration board with a demure and soft focused masterfully conceived mysterious ingenue. This was presumably done as cover art and the back is dated 1928. Looks very much like covers done for Hearst’s International or The Shrine Magazine.
Artist: Wladyslaw Benda
A glamourous and serene large rendering of long reigning screen star siren Loretta Young in pastel done for a cover of Romantic Story Magazine by noted Brown & Bigelow pin-up artist and prolific cover illustrator Zoe Mozert. Mozert executed over 400 covers for such titles as Screen Book, True Romance, True Confessions and Randolph Hearst’s American Weekly. Titled on verso Letters and in fine print the letter is addressed to Louis B. Meyer Paramount film head of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Artist: Zoe Mozert
A finely detailed intricate 1920s illustration by noted comic artist and illustrator Jay Irving. This differs from his often times loose and quickly rendered interior comic gag cartoon style, as it is a much more detailed and intricately rendered work. I am presuming it was used as a cover for Judge Magazine as there is a large border in the upper portion for the title of the magazine to be added, and the appearance, size of work, date of illustration board and subject matter would fit the magazine’s tone and overall aesthetic.
Artist: Jay Irving
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A serene and expertly rendered early original pastel from the admired female Jazz Age illustrator Neysa McMein. This illustration was created as the cover of the October 1921 issue of Woman’s Home Companion. Pictured is New York City blue blood debutante and silent movie star Mrs. Lydig (Julia) Hoyt. McMein gained notoriety in the 1920’s and 30’s as an independent, feminist minded free spirit. She roamed with the Algonquin Round Table set crowd of heavy drinking, free spirited New York City intellengtsia.
Artist: Neysa McMein
A rare surviving original cover illustration for Rogue For Me Magazine by Lloyd Rognan for an July 1956 edition. Rognan had a long and prolific career as an illustrator , he studied with an early WPA art student project, contributed regularily for Stars and Stripes. Later his science fiction pulp artwork appeared as covers for such publications as Fate, Imagination and ImaginativeTales, and other sci-fi pulp magazines exploiting the “pre Apollo” moon mission space travel craze. In the 60’s, Rognan was also a regular staff artist for Brown & Bigelow and created a hillbilly humor line called Corn Squeezins.
Artist: Lloyd Rognan
An important and rare original cover illustration for Vogue Magazine by Eduardo Benito who did his first cover for Vogue in November 1921 . Along with George LePape , Helen Dryden , and George Plank, Benito was a frequent cover contributor and really came into his own and helped define the late 1920’s Jazz Age sophisticated angular geometric look.
Artist: Eduardo Benito
A decidedly art deco jazz age original cover illustration for Judge Magazine signed F. Hanley lower right. Titled Feeding The Flames for the February 7, cover a topical great depression humorous depiction. Gouache painting is displayed in a great period ornate carved gesso frame.
Artist: Frank Hanley
