Original Art from the Grand Age of American Illustration
Enric Torres-Prat and Selecciones Ilustradas In this original oil on board cover painting for an as-of-yet unidentified crime paperback, Enric Torres-Prat, better known simply as Enric, draws on the style of Robert McGinnis to create a montage featuring a redheaded femme fatale and an oversized purple gun. Please note, the gun is applied via a […]
Artist: Enric
This is an exciting, fresh-to-the-market paperback book cover illustration by Al Schmidt for the 1952 Cardinal Complete Book Edition of The White Tower by James Ramsey Ullman. The text slug on the paperback reads, “Five men and one woman gazed upward at Weissturm – The White Tower – hypnotized by the beckoning shadows […]
Artist: Al Schmidt
A feisty redhead is caught in a private moment in this voyeuristic and menacing published pulp painting that was used as the cover of Ecstasy Books #15 “Wanton By Night.” The image is filled with classic pulp iconography, from the scantily-clad femme fatale hurryingly drawing down her shade in the close confines of urban apartment […]
Artist: George Gross
Large, dramatically lit, and alluring, this gouache on illustration board painting by Howard Purcell was created as cover art in 1953 for the digest novel Wild Body by Manning Clay, which told “the intimate story of a modern Salome–who tried to shed the seventh veil.” The scene shows Valerie, a pretty albeit tired burlesque dancer between shows, […]
Artist: Howard Purcell
This lurid and bold gouache illustration painting by Fred Rodewald was created as cover art for the January, 1949 edition of Ecstasy Novel Magazine, which printed in full the novella length story “Paula Has A Price!” by pulp author Peggy Gaddis (writing under the pseudonym Perry Lindsay). Included with the painting is a published high grade edition of […]
Artist: Fred Rodewald
Gene Szafran created this psychedelic painting for the cover of Hermaphrodeity – An Autobiography Of A Poet, by Alan Friedman.
Artist: Gene Szafran
This complex, detailed, and eerie surreal painting by Dean Ellis was created as cover art for Red Tide by D.D. Chapman & Delores Lehman Tarzan (Ace Science Fiction Special #2). The painting shows a mutated reptilian scientist who is one of the last humans surviving in a dystopian underwater near-future. Post-apocalyptic scenarios where humans struggled to adapt to […]
Artist: Dean Ellis
A subversive and suggestive gouache painting by Isabel Dawson which appeared as the cover of the Stallion Books paperback Trailer Camp Girl, a 1953 offering written by Doug Duperault. The text slugs reads : “They Called Her A Trailer Tramp – A Story of The Carefree Women Who Live – And Love – In Trailer Camps…” Painting has […]
Artist: Isabel Dawson
This small preliminary gouache painting on illustration board is by noted artist and illustrator Rafael Desoto. A red-lipped, blonde bad girl finds herself in the grip of a haunting, demon-like man who appears out of the flames behind her. In the 1950s DeSoto created many paperback book covers for such publishers as Ace, Bantam, […]
Artist: Rafael DeSoto
A lurid watercolor painting on board by noted artist & illustrator Rafael DeSoto, this was a preliminary artwork for a completed cover for the February 1945 issue of Dime Detective Magazine. A sleepy winter town at night takes a menacing turn when a man going to post a letter meets a gruesome demise, left […]
Artist: Rafael DeSoto
