Original Art from the Grand Age of American Illustration
This striking and vibrantly colored oil on canvas pin-up painting by Art Frahm features a gorgeous redheaded nude draped in a lavender shawl. She delicately removes one of her high-heeled shoes while seated on a green fringed hassock. Her fair skin, red hair, rosy cheeks, and red lips are in beautiful contrast to […]
Artist: Art Frahm
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
Jewel Flowers; a diminutive gem of an artist’s model who was muse to Rolf Armstrong for half his career, and whose popularity at times threatened to surpass his. Armstrong began the 1940s known for vampy flappers and radiant pin-ups with art deco sophistication, a style that was waning in popularity at the time. His meeting with Flowers, an unknown […]
For nearly three decades the inimitable Enoch Bolles was the sole cover artist for Film Fun magazine, creating larger than life and uniquely erotic pin up creations that bridged the gap between the traditional calendar girl and pulp magazine femme-fatales. In this example, which graced the cover of the June 1940 issue, a streamlined […]
Artist: Enoch Bolles
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
In this original oil on canvas pulp painting by Harold McCauley, used as the cover for the November, 1954 pulp digest, Imaginative Tales #2, a near nude runaway pin-up girl seductively rides a speeding red bullet – with the next stop being the moon… Created to illustrate an interior serialized novella story by Charles F. […]
Artist: Harold McCauley
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
A well-crafted, stylish, and eye-catching cover painting by the renowned pin-up calendar artist and commercial illustrator Fritz Willis. This was used as a cover for a Shipstads & Johnson Ice Follies program in the early 1960s. In many regards Willis was the last of the great American pin-up artists; he brought pin-up imagery, poses and styles into the mod era and embraced changing ideals of femininity without being revisionist or nostalgic. In all regards, Willis shone in these yearly Ice Follies commissions as he excelled at costuming and seemed to enjoy capturing the evolving pop culture styles of the moment.
Artist: Fritz Willis
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
This interior genre scene features an exotic Edwardian Spanish Senorita in traditional garb posing seductively as she coyly holds a fan. An original oil on canvas by the well listed artist Alonzo Kimball, who studied in Paris during the 1890s at Académie Julian and later at The Art Students League of New York. The artist is best remembered for the covers he painted for The Saturday Evening Post.
Artist: Alonzo Kimball
