Original Art from the Grand Age of American Illustration
This sexy oil-on-canvas pin-up painting by Walt Otto was created for and published in a 1961 12-page spiral bound pin-up calendar. The image shows a flirty blonde with dangerous curves seductively caught “sitting pretty,” with classic mid-century style. Though this is unsigned, it is guaranteed to be a published example by Walt Otto. We were able to […]
Artist: Walt Otto
A fabulous published erotic pin-up painting by Freeman Elliott for The Brown & Bigelow Calendar Company. The image appeared in 1948 as one of the two images in a double deck of playing cards put out by the calendar giant marketed with the title “Winning Aces”. From the Collection of Charles Martignette and Louis Meisel, the […]
Artist: Freeman Elliott
A breezy Jazz-Age American impressionist painting from the 1920s by the New York City illustrator artist, illustrator and anarchist Modest Stein. A young contemplative couple with a sense for fashion eye a possible future as one as they gaze out together over the Eastern seaboard. The artist worked extensively for romance themed titles for Street & […]
Artist: Modest Stein
Carmen, painted in 1929, is one of four monumental and epic, larger than life oil paintings created by Rolf Armstrong after his return from a yearlong excursion to Paris, where the artist was inspired by the fine art salon movement nudes which were on display in museums, galleries, and private homes throughout France. Known as the Paris […]
Artist: Rolf Armstrong
A pretty mid-century Whitcomb girl tries the scientific approach while frame shopping in this inventive published large format gouache illustration magazine by Jon Whitcomb, which appeared as an interior illustration in the January, 1950 edition of Ladies Home Journal. A copy of the issue is included in the sale. Handsomely matted and framed under glass in pristine […]
Artist: Jon Whitcomb
This oil on illustration board Pyramid Books paperback cover painting was created by by Victor Olson for a 1953 edition of Houseboy by Edison Marshall written under the nom de plum Walton Fairbank (ostensibly because of the controversial topic of interracial relationships explored in the title).The story was originally written as a Jim Crow title in the late […]
Artist: Victor Olson
A bawdy smoking redheaded bad girl finds herself proverbially “on the fence” and garnering the attention of a pair of well articulated convincing hayseeds in this large and wonderful original paperback book cover illustration by Sam Cherry. Painted in the 1950s, an oil on illustration board which was created for an as of yet unidentified paperback title exploring […]
Artist: Sam Cherry
A signed gouache on illustration board painting by Harry Barton, created as the cover for Dorine Clark’s 1959 novel Hell Cat. This original artwork is a prime example of the boundary pushing, subversive imagery that helped draw readers to the taboo and lurid stories put out by pulp paperback publishers. These titles often pushed the boundaries of […]
Artist: Harry Barton
This striking and tense dramatic painting by Norman Saunders was created as cover art for the the October, 1950 issue of the pulp magazine 15 Story Detective; a Popular Publications title. The scene is a classic example of menace art – a heroic uniformed pretty blonde WAC soldier attempts to disarm a poison wielding femme fatale in an airplane hangar, unaware […]
Artist: Norman Saunders
Stanley Borack created this striking, evocative and finely rendered painting for the cover of the 1954 Dell Books paperback Silver Doll by Blair Treynor. A lurid pulp fiction page turner set in Sin City; the back cover slug advertises “the story of a man in the rackets; of the doll who wanted to keep him there, and the woman […]
Artist: Stanley Borack
