Original Art from the Grand Age of American Illustration
Futuristic, detailed, and very precise, this science-fiction inspired imagination of cosmos exploration was created in 1963 as the cover of the British magazine Understanding Science #71, a Sampson Low Publication. Geared to the high school audience, and part of the ongoing space race effort to get youths interested in science during the Cold War, the image dramatizes astronomy by […]
Artist: Unknown British Illustrator
This oil on board painting by Samson Pollen was created as cover art for the 1955 paperback Mambo To Murder, one half of the double sided Ace Double Novel D-109. Private eye Joe Moran, who had his license revoked for extracting “two fisted justice” is shown in a bleak urban hotel room lit by an outside […]
Artist: Samson Pollen
Tom Lovell created this colorful and expertly rendered painting to illustrate “Son of The Coach” an interior story for the October 14, 1950 issue of Collier’s Magazine. A copy of the magazine is included in the sale. The scene captures a brunette co-ed turning away in sadness from the ongoing marching band celebration in the background, as the son of […]
Artist: Tom Lovell
A wonderful and rare surviving original watercolor and graphite illustration by the legendary Art Nouveau artist Raphael Kirchner. The image shows a sexually provocative “Kirchner Girl” in rolled silk stockings, seductively grilling the many hearts she has stolen. This appeared in print in La Vie Parisienne with the German language quip “Können Diese Herzen Warm Genug Sein?”, which translates loosely to “Are […]
Artist: Raphael Kirchner
This remarkable art deco Orientalist scene by the American illustrator and cartoonist Frank Godwin, depicts the interior story “Ali Baba And The Forty Thieves”, from the 1920 children’s book Stories The Sandman Told, a complete copy of which is included in the sale. Pictured in this gouache on board painting, is Morgiana, a slave girl who is pouring […]
Artist: Frank Godwin
This playfully spirited and sexy original oil on canvas pin-up painting by Edward Runci was published by the Shaw-Barton Calendar Company in 1947 with the title “Wish You Were Here.” The artist was an outstanding painter of pin-ups during the 1940s and 50s whose smooth style was much admired by his contemporaries. Unlike the majority of other […]
Artist: Edward Runci
This oil on canvasboard painting by Harold (H.W.) McCauley was created for use as the cover for the 1959 Nightstand digest pulp novel Carnival of Lust by J.X. Williams. In this offering a near-nude harem girl flirtatiously eyes a martini drinking genie. The painting is a dynamic and well-rendered example by this prolific and gifted American illustrator, and a great artifact […]
Artist: Harold McCauley
This trio of images by Thornton Utz was created to illustrate a single story in the flagship Curtis Publishing magazine The Saturday Evening Post. With a bold mid-century modern aesthetic and the dry brush gouache technique popular in glossy magazines in the 1950s, the set presents an enticing take on American femininity as idealized during the Cold […]
Artist: Thornton Utz
A remarkable and early oil on illustration board painting by the well listed east coast artist Charles Fracé, likely created in the 1950s as a paperback book cover. A desperate, love-struck couple steal an impassioned last moment together as a blizzard rages around them in this tense dramatic and inventive early offering. This is unsigned […]
Artist: Charles Fracé
This delicately rendered, original, signed Pearl Frush pin-up illustration was published by the Gerlach-Barklow Calendar Company under the title “Miss Bermuda.” The nearly photo-realist watercolor appeared as part of a 1947 “Aqua Tour” series of bathing beauty images. Pearl Frush was a prolific and talented female artist who was active during the 1940s and 50s and worked […]
Artist: Pearl Frush
