Original Art from the Grand Age of American Illustration
Ruth Harriet Louise, the groundbreaking female photographer who created some of the best known 1920s jazz age Hollywood portraits for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, here captures Mae Murray at her most provocative and playful. Her “bee-stung lips” are on full display in his orientalist inspired and erotic sepia view. Large double-weight photographs such as this were never intended for widespread distributions, and were hand printed by the photographers themselves.
Artist: Ruth Harriet Louise
An early fabulous pen & ink drawing by Cardwell Higgins in the art deco manner titled “Siamese Dancers”, possibly a commissioned work for use by Paramount Films where the artist was under contract in the late 1920s. Higgins completed a series of like minded costumed art deco pen & ink drawings between the years of 1927 – 1929 that were re-marketed as a series of limited edition art prints under the guidance of Charles Martignette in 1979. The work is finely matted and framed behind glass in a handsome art deco black and silver fine gallery frame.
Artist: Cardwell Higgins
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.
Artist: Irving Chidnoff
A smartly rendered pin-up girl gag watercolor cartoon for Esquire Magazine by noted African American cartoon artist and illustrator E. Simms Campbell. Gag features a Bedouin trader desert scene with a harem girl, tagline reads “Personally, I think the camel is a much smarter buy”. Work is ink stamped by Esquire Magazine on the verso and signed by the artist lower right.
Artist: E. Simms Campbell
This exceptionally large oil on canvas mural by Henry Clive was created for the long gone legendary Hollywood Boulevard haunt “The Jade Lounge.” Titled “The Buddha-Pest,” the image acted as a logo for the bar, with matchbooks and post cards created with its likeness to attract tourists. The Jade Lounge became a destination and this monumental painting remained a focal point of the restaurant for decades. Henry Clive executed several murals for Hollywood nightclubs, and for The Masquers Club, Hollywood’s oldest theatrical club.
Artist: Henry Clive
A wonderful original work by the gifted and prolific Louis F. Rhead this is 4 images on one illustration board, all were used for the 1916 Harper & Brothers published edition of The Arabian Nights . The maiden was the frontispiece for the introduction section and the stylized letters where the artists created fonts for chapter first letters. This is framed in a period, antique art nouveau bat wing gesso antique frame and looks devine as such.
Artist: Louis Rhead
I am proud to be able to offer this highly stylized and orientalist take on the beheading of John the Baptist, as depicted by C. Bosseron Chambers, the famed illustrator of epic and Christian scenes who was dubbed the religious Rockwell. Chambers’ “Light of the World” image was as famous and popular a print as Maxfield Parrish’s “Daybreak.” This dramatic scene, in wonderful period frame with velvet matting, is an engaging and exceptional example of Chambers’ gift of rendering religious scenes in a provocative and modern manner.
Artist: Charles Bosseron Chambers
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 boldly executed rare surviving art deco cover illustration by noted American artist, Frank McIntosh. McIntosh is best known for his Hawaiian-style menu art for Matson Line cruise ships. He was the main cover illustrator for Asia magazine from 1925-1934. Today these issues are in great demand because of their exceptional stylized art deco covers. A rare opportunity to buy an original McIntosh cover illustration painting.
Artist: Frank McIntosh
