new york city

A deeply romantic jazz age view of Gilda Gray, “the Shimmy girl” from her starring turn in “The Devil’s Dancer.” This is a treasure of the orientalist movement in photography in the 1920s, featuring the theater and film star in highly exotic lush costuming and soft focus, hyper close up style. The rich sepia of the photography and the soft focus were among the signatures of photographer Irving Chidnoff, who specialized in these idealized yet realistic photographic portraits of theater and films stars in New York.

Gilda Gray in Sepia

Artist: Irving Chidnoff

A large and decorative gouache and graphite illustration by Willy Pogany titled on verso in the artists hand “Love’s Labour’s Lost”. Likely used in a William Shakespeare adaptation perhaps a cover for “The American Weekly” a large courting scene and a grand depiction by this very important artist from “The Golden Age of Illustration”. Work is beautifully silk matted and framed behind glass and ready to hang.

Love’s Labour’s Lost

Artist: Willy Pogany

A colorful and festive original gouache painting by the prolific Hungarian artist Willy Pogany for an as of yet undetermined interior book plate illustration. A courting scene with a knight and princess assembled in a far away idyllic surround. The verso is notated with “pg. 26” this was a published work it is boldly signed lower right and nicely matted with a silk mat and framed behind glass.

In the Court of the Princess

Artist: Willy Pogany

A well rendered and rare surviving 1920s original oil on board illustration by the prolific New York artist Charles M. Relyea. Featuring an art deco Indian Maiden this is a fine example of American calendar art and was a widely published image titled “Chums” which evokes the allure of the Indian Maiden and wonderfully captures the Depression-era popular fascination with exotic-themed escapism.

Chums

Artist: Charles Relyea

A dazzling, large oil on canvas painting by frequent Saturday Evening Post cover artist Frederic Stanley. This wild prohibition-era, Charleston-dancing, Roaring Twenties flapper girl celebrates a Loew’s Theatre New York Policeman’s Ball Burlesque show. This is a wonderfully rendered artwork and a piece of New York history originally owned by Eve Green, the first wife of hotel magnate Harry Helmsley. Created for the cover of the program associated with this 1926 review, this important work showcases the 1920s jazz-age aesthetic of Manhattan’s bustling Vaudeville/Burlesque social scene.

The Policeman’s Ball, 1926

Artist: Frederic Stanley

A large and fantastic oil painting by New York Illustrator and artist Edmund F. Ward for an interior story in The Pictorial Review Nov. 1921; titled “The Girl Who Wanted a Fairy Prince”. A magical other-worldly scene that serves as the artists image selection in the Walt Reed penned “The Illustrator in America”. Additionally this painting has been exhibited at The Norman Rockwell Museum in 2002, and at The Society Of Illustrators in 1984. Nicely framed in a handsome hand crafted white gold museum quality frame.

The Girl Who Wanted a Fairy Prince

Artist: Edmund Ward

This Raphael Kirchner Ziegfeld Follies pastel is a newly unearthed piece of New York City theater history, and a once in a generation find. Part of a suite of five illustrations which feature the erotic and luminous showgirls who starred in the legendary theater revue Ziegfeld Follies and made the name synonymous with images of the most beautiful, brazen and sensuous women in early 20th century New York. This portrait of Vivienne Segal hung in the lobby of the historic Century Theater until it shut its doors in 1936.

Vivienne Segal: Ziegfeld Follies Century Girl

Artist: Raphael Kirchner

A dazzling art deco era original oil on canvas by noted New York Illustrator Walter Beach Humphrey. Humphrey did 3 covers for The Saturday Evening Post in 1923. He also was a frequent cover contributor for Colliers , Liberty and Argosy Magazines. He currently has works on display at the Norman Rockwell Museum in their Toast of the Town exhibit. The model was the artist’s wife Connie Regina. I am assuming this was painted as a decorative work as I cannot imagine a cover it could have been used for with the possible exception of a Burlesque or Follies Bergere type program cover.

Decorative Art Deco Nude

Artist: Walter Beach Humphrey

A tense and action packed gunfight scene featuring a flapper era cowgirl is presented in this large and rare surviving Domingo F. Periconi oil painting. This artwork was commissioned by Dell publications as cover art for the June 1938 edition of Ace High Magazine, a western pulp. Work has printer’s verso notations and is initialed lower left and really is a defining example of 1930s pulp fiction.

Cowgirl Shootout in The Old West

Artist: Domingo Periconi

This Everett Shinn pencil & gouache artwork offers a humorous take on class relations, and seemingly, the effects of intoxication. A well-heeled gentleman is shown face down in the grass as an unflappable butler bends down to assess the situation. Shinn was renowned for his ability to capture the minute distinctions of society and debauchery, and this artwork displays his fluid and lively style.

Yes, Sir

Artist: Everett Shinn

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