Original Art from the Grand Age of American Illustration
This sassy secretary pin up pastel was created by Earl Moran for the Brown & Bigelow Calendar Company in about 1940. The work appeared as a mutoscope card with the title “A Sweet Job”. Office girl pin-up depictions were common during the pre-WWII lean economic years of the Great Depression, and this is an inspired example of that genre. A published mutoscope card of the image is included in the sale.
Artist: Earl Moran
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
A kinetic art deco era flapper girl bathing beauty is captured frolicking in the waves in this original oil on canvas pin-up painting by William Soare. Likely created for a pin-up calendar, the work is signed lower left and also marked on the back canvas in the artists hand. William Fulton Soare was a versatile illustrator who was prolific during the 1920s – 30s creating covers for many pulp magazines titles and Boy’s Adventure Magazines. His first assignments were illustrations for calendar reproduction.
Artist: William Soare
A large and beautiful original pastel by Rolf Armstrong that first appeared as a pin-up calendar for The Thos. D. Murphy Calendar Company under the title “Orchids To You”. Armstrong only created eight artworks for the Iowa based company, and as he was already America’s premiere glamour illustrator when he began working with them, he was permitted to retain ownership of his original pastels. He often reworked these slightly for use as covers for College Humor magazine, during the tail end of his ten year association with the periodical. Staying just outside copyright infringement by removing the orchids from the model’s left hand, and placing a “New York” and “C” for copyright under his distinctive signature, this altered version appeared on the cover of College Humor in March of 1936, the last time an Armstrong girl would grace this title. This pastel appears in a mid 1930s “Armstrong Art Service’s” brochure with the title of “Flower of the North” which is included in sale.
Artist: Rolf Armstrong
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This early original pin-up pastel which Earl Moran created for the Brown & Bigelow Calendar Company of Saint Paul Mn is a variation of the 1942 mutoscope card “Easy To Take”. It is unclear whether Moran liked his naughty nurse themed offering so much that he created this similarly styled image soon after its publication, or if this was Moran’s original idea, and Brown & Bigelow asked for him to turn from the French Maid homecoming piece seen here into an example of the popular candy striper pin up which was published as a hotcha girl image.
Artist: Earl Moran
A large art deco modernist pastel illustration by Rolf Armstrong titled “Hello Everybody”. From the estate of Mike Wooldridge and never before offered for sale, this is easily one of Armstrong’s most iconic works for The Brown & Bigelow Calendar Company. For good reason, this is one of the artist’s most widely distributed images featuring a cute and sassy flapper girl in feminine jazz-age business attire. One of Armstrong’s most prolifically used creations, Wooldridge collected versions of the image used in playing cards, advertising blotters, notebook tablets, calendars and prints in all sizes and configurations. Many are included with sale.
Artist: Rolf Armstrong
A unique and inventive, large and luminous original pin-up pastel calendar illustration created for the Brown & Bigelow Calendar Company of Saint Paul Minnesota. This was used as a 1958 calendar titled “Moonglow”. The model is Jewel Flowers and this is rendered in an electric cobalt blue palette with the model catching the golden hues afforded by a moonlit night. The work is pictured in “The Great American Pin-up” on page 98 plate #95.
Artist: Rolf Armstrong
This good girl art original pastel exemplifies the beauty and personality which kept pin up and glamour a mainstay of calendar imagery even after illustration began giving way to technicolor photography in popularity. This features a fresh faced auburn haired modernist beauty queen from 1975 envisioned by the leading female pin-up illustrator Pearl Frush and published by Gerlach-Barklow of Joliet Illinois.
Artist: Pearl Frush
A Christmas themed dazzling original calendar illustration by Bill Layne for The Brown & Bigelow Calendar Company. This was for a pharmacy drugstore account and appeared on a Christmas Holiday Calendar in 1953. Layne worked for Walt Disney in the art department creating story board graphics and design embellishments which is apparent here in his twinkling Tinkerbell fairy goddess depiction.
Artist: Bill Layne
A radiant and pristine original pastel glamour pin-up illustration by Pearl Frush, created in 1944 and used in the 1945 Gerlach-Barklow calendar line under the title “Lovely as the Dawn”. This really shows to great affect what Frush was able to create with her almost photo-realist in technique pastel mastery. Housed in its handsome original presentation frame properly lined behind glass with a verso tag from Robberson Steel Co. of Oklahoma who was gifted this pastel in exchange for their advertising.
Artist: Pearl Frush
