Minnesota Artist

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

An inspired and outrageous, entirely hand painted and created paper-mache decorative mask by Hannes Bok, this captures an exuberant, outlandish Art Deco Egyptian – Orientalist style. One of our favorite illustrators, Bok was born Wayne Woodard and grew up in Duluth Minnesota. As an adult, the artist carved out a meager living as an illustrator and “part time astrologer”. What we love most about Bok is his steadfast idealism and refusal to conform to the whims and rigors of publishing trends. Not surprisingly Bok died penniless in New York City. As today’s collectors and scholars unearth the lost history of the pulps the star of Hannes Bok burns brighter than at any time during his long and prolific career.

An Orientalist Avant-Garde Mask

Artist: Hannes Bok

An erotic and sensational pin-up painting by Mayo Olmstead presumably created for The Brown & Bigelow Calendar Company. The work is mixed media on a Crescent illustration board with pastel used for the central figure and skin tones and oil or acrylic applied in an impasto textured bold technique to the border areas creating an alarming and lively composition. Olmstead was known for his good girl styled beauties, this sun burned she devil on the other hand is entirely of another vernacular.

Crazy From The Heat

Artist: Mayo Olmstead

A smartly rendered late 1960s to 1970s gouache illustration painting by Mayo Olmstead presumably created for a Brown & Bigelow pin-up calendar. Olmstead, along with Fritz Willis, Clair Fry, and Bill Layne, was the Saint Paul, Minnesota calendar company’s star staff illustrator during the tail end of the pin-up craze, when a more modern and contemporary idealized beauty was preferred. A classic example of what is now referred to as “Good Girl Art” or GGA by pin-up collectors and pop culture scholars.

Mod Glamour Girl with Rose

Artist: Mayo Olmstead

Grapefruit Moon Gallery is delighted to offer a fresh (in all respects!) original oil on canvas pin-up painting by Vaughan Bass for The Louis F. Dow Calendar Company. A young strawberry-blonde nude bombshell with a curling iron readying herself for a night out on the town. A never on the market before fabulous estate find by this under valued and very talented and prolific calendar artist. Work is on original pine stretchers and in a very fine state of conservation, in all regards “The Great American Pin-up”.

An Iron in the Fire

Artist: Vaughan Bass

The second work from a pair of 1920s gouache paintings by the Minneapolis Minnesota artist Lee Mero, titled “Land O’ the Sky Blue Water.” This retains its brightly colored pin striped art deco enamel painted wood frame. This was likely a commissioned work for the Buzza Motto Company who prospered during the Roaring 20s Jazz Age years providing prints, plaques, bridge tallies and menu books that captured the style and aesthetics of the burgeoning modernist art deco movement. This beautiful depiction of northern Minnesota’s 10,000 lakes glory captures the fascination with Native American culture with an Indian Chief in a birch-bark canoe and blue heron birds that are indigenous to the area.

Land O’ the Sky Blue Water

Artist: Lee Mero

Titled at turns “Flower Girl” and “Message of Love,” this original oil on canvas by Edward D’Ancona was created for the John Frederick Calendar Company. Featuring an elegant and wholesome depiction of the good girl glamour art ideal, this marks a winsome departure by the prolific and infamous creator of the panties dropping, embarrassment style of cheesecake that signaled the wane of the era of “The Great American Pin-up.”

Message of Love

Artist: Edward D'Ancona

An unusual mid-century modern impressionist oil on canvas dated 1954 by well listed Minnesota painter and WPA muralist Dewey Albinson. A colorful view of a colorful space in the town Cocula, Jalisco, Mexico (where the artist lived for a time) titled The Yellow House. Painted in a dramatic and well realized impasto technique with wildly executed colors and a strong sense of composition and harmony. In original painted wide profile WPA aesthetic rough wood frame with exhibition tag on verso pine stretchers.

The Yellow House

Artist: Dewey Albinson

A large and early commissioned pin-up painting by Gil Elvgren for the Brown & Bigelow Calendar Company titled “Finders Keepers.” This 1945 oil on canvas was painted in a larger format than Elvgren standardly used, and this is by all accounts a desirable and classic example of the Great American Pin Up by the undisputed master, featuring bold bright colors, and a wholesome yet sexy appeal. The canvas is relined and this painting was previously sold by The American Illustrators Gallery in New York.

Finders Keepers

Artist: Gil Elvgren

A charming and well rendered 1954 oil on canvas painting created for an Ohleen Dairy Calendar by the Louis F. Dow Company. The artist is Vaughan Alden Bass, who specialized in pin-up art for this Saint Paul Minnesota gone but not forgotten Calendar giant. Of particular note in this lovely painting is the adorable bakelite crib toy in the lower right corner. verso canvas is dated 1954, and stretcher is marked with Ohleen Dairy, 1954 Line and Current in pen.

Sleeping Child With Crib Toy

Artist: Vaughan Bass

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