Original Art from the Grand Age of American Illustration
Jewel Flowers was Armstrong’s favorite model and closest personal friend. She passed away last year and is fondly remembered and sorely missed by the pin-up and illustration art community. Her zesty, sexy spirit, and the kinship between the artist and model are clearly visible in this wonderful pastel.
Artist: Rolf Armstrong
An original 1961 Oil on Canvas by Gilette Elvgren commissioned for the Brown & Bigelow Calendar Company and published under the title “A Neat Package”. A sexy Elvgren pin-up that explores the silk stockings and garters scenario that the artist is best known for. For those of you not keeping track, recent auctions have seen Elvgren’s pin-up works for Brown & Bigelow topping $200,000.00 at auction on more than one occasion with a high water mark of $262,900.00 this June.
Artist: Gil Elvgren
A fashionable demure art nouveau maiden with a parasol is leered at by an Edwardian gent in a wig with opera glasses in this gouache illustration which dates from 1910 – 1920. The work is unsigned and is mindful in style of the works which appeared in Vogue and Vanity Fair Magazines. This is beautifully framed in a carved wood gesso antique frame.
Artist: Unknown
A monumental and important original large pastel illustration on stretched canvas by James Ross Bryson, executed in 1914 for The Thos. D. Murphy Calendar Company of Red Oak Iowa under the title “Reverie in Green”. Bryson was an influential and supremely gifted and handsomely paid American Illustrator who earned a hefty $200.00 per commission for images of his risque for the day, modern enchantress themed Art Nouveau Maiden depictions. This work is housed in it’s original wide solid mahogany gold gilt lined antique frame and is properly lined behind glass.
Artist: J. Ross Bryson
A whimsical snow scene pastel illustration by Rolf Armstrong which initially appeared as the cover for College Humor in December of 1929. This image was slightly altered by Armstrong and appeared again in 1936 as a Brown & Bigelow Calendar titled “The Call of the North”. The pastel was dedicated to Stan Fenelle another Brown & Bigelow artist by Armstrong and is a new to the market Saint Paul Minnesota estate find. Work is matted and framed in a period art deco era Newcomb-Macklin antique gold carved frame.
Artist: Rolf Armstrong
A snappy and sexy original pastel illustration by Earl Moran commissioned as a 1951 Brown & Bigelow calendar. Text reads “Here’s an extra addition you can hardly refuse; for this little gal is just covered in news…” Pastel is beautifully framed and condition is outstanding as is the image.
Artist: Earl Moran
This dramatic and deftly rendered gouache was created as the cover for “Male” February 1966 “Yank Imposter In The Luftwaffe,” and reprinted as an interior 2 page spread in the June 1967 issue of “For Men Only” titled “10 Days To Bring In The Death Head General.” A remarkably tight work that shows Kunstler at his best, using an almost photo-realist technique to create tension, menace and fear.
Artist: Mort Künstler
A well rendered erotically posed Diana the Huntress nude pin-up painting by Lawrence Gordon Low, in a stylish wide profile gallery frame. The work is estate stamped on the verso and is a luminous well realized example of The Great American Pin-up.
Artist: Lawrence Low
A flirty, scandalous and new to the market cover illustration by Enoch Bolles, which appeared first as a cover for a 1930’s Young’s Magazine, and again made an appearance on a 1938 cover of Breezy Stories. Enoch Bolles excelled in these curiously proportioned Spicy Pulp, envelope pushing, angular modernist heartbreakers. This is a spectacular work which, like most Bolles’ offerings, is unsigned and is nicely framed and ready to hang.
Artist: Enoch Bolles
An original gouache on board created for the cover of the September 1962 edition of For Men Only, illustrating the story Operation”Never-Talk:” Shocking Revenge of Norway’s Partisan Nymph. (A Smuggled-In Yank And A Wild Anti-Nazi Underground Girl by James S. Wagner. A large finely rendered scene of a bungled SS operation, with a trio of tightly wound American service men, a gathering of inebriated Nazi’s and a pair of scantily clad female secret agents acting as decoys.
Artist: Mort Künstler
