Original Art from the Grand Age of American Illustration
This collection of three published Brown & Bigelow calendar girl paintings from 1950 offers a mid-century modernist Parisian take on classic pin up art. We believe the artist to be Jean-Gabriel Domergue who was active at the time in France, creating breezy coquettish often times topless hatted sophisticates. These are signed “Ioxia of Paris” we […]
Artist: Attributed to Domergue
This remarkable image features a nude reclining maiden by one of our favorite Golden Age illustrators W.T. Benda. A dazzling composition, an intricate and technically adept graphite drawing with silver glittery paint highlighting the subject’s hair and face. Signed lower right and beautifully framed and silk matted behind glass in a hand carved gold leafed […]
Artist: Wladyslaw Benda
This dark and cleverly conceived and technically brilliant tinted pen & ink drawing with gouache highlights exemplifies the German expressionist artist Heinrich Kley’s brooding and satirical vision of mankind. At first take, we see a bear, ogre, and frog cavorting in a circus-like atmosphere, but on further reflection the scene turns darker. Kley’s pessimism […]
Artist: Heinrich Kley
A very large, bright and breathtaking nude pin-up created by Rolf Armstrong in 1939-40. Possibly deemed too risque for publication, this provocative work features a sensational rich cobalt blue and crimson red color palette. A wonderful candlelight view of a divine glamour girl seen scandalously nude through her crinoline wrap. This monumental pastel is one of only a handful of nudes by this iconic and prolific American illustrator and The Father of American Pin-up.
Artist: Rolf Armstrong
An original pastel, gouache and graphite mixed media pin-up illustration by Frank D’Amario. Little has been written about D’Amario; we know that he worked for several calendar companies in the 1940s – 50s and was quite prolific producing dozens of published calendar pieces. Over our careers as antique dealers, we have sold many published examples of his work but his originals are scarce. This original pin-up illustration is beautifully framed and matted behind glass in a wide profile antique hand crafted gold painted basswood frame.
Artist: Frank D'Amario
A radiant and lushly executed fine art nude oil painting by the well listed female Hungarian artist Maria Szantho, who had a long and decorated career both overseas in Europe and here in the United States. Szantho created three oil paintings depicting her homeland of Hungary for the 1939 World’s Fair in New York City. This is among the prettiest examples of her nude portraiture we have seen. Painting is housed in a hand carved basswood gold leafed museum quality frame.
Artist: Maria Szantho
A delicately rendered pastel on illustration board by Henry Clive, capturing an exotic pretty nude pin-up model with ruby red lips envisioned as a sleeping beauty. This captures effortlessly the prolific artist’s unique take on feminine allure. We believe this to be an unpublished illustration, retains its handsome hand carved wood gallery frame and is handsomely cloth matted and lined behind glass.
Artist: Henry Clive
This 1953 deliriously sexy nude pin-up oil painting by Gil Elvgren for the Brown & Bigelow Calendar Company dates to the artist’s best period. This image was used in a deck of playing cards under the title Cee Bee (To Hold) Fascinating Figures and is pictured as figure 251 in Gil Elvgren All His Glamorous American Pin-Ups by Charles G. Martignette and Louis K. Meisel. From the Estate of Charles Martignette.
Artist: Gil Elvgren
This important and defining oil on canvas portrait features a stylized Mata Hari in the midst of one of her sensual, almost trance-like dances. The highly moody piece is a wonderful example of the 1900-1915 century Spanish modernismo movement by Anselmo Miguel Nieto, one of its brightest talents. This classically inspired yet fully modern painting applies formal chiaroscuro technique (the exaggerated use of light and dark to create a dramatic perspective) to one of the great courtesans of early 20th century Europe to create a sexually and politically subversive yet beautiful work.
Artist: Anselmo Miguel Nieto
Legendary American pin-up illustrator Earl Moran was one of the first to discover a muse in the iconic Hollywood legend Marilyn Monroe. During the late 1940s Monroe famously worked as a pin-up model for the Blue Book agency, posing under her real name of Norma Jeane Dougherty. After Moran transitioned away from the hectic life of a calendar artist to focus on his fine art painting, he revisited Marilyn, who was by then a platinum blonde Hollywood bombshell, through an arrangement with The Aaron Brothers Galleries, Laguna Beach CA.
Artist: Earl Moran
