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Grapefruit Moon Gallery

Original Art from the Grand Age of American Illustration

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Rafael DeSoto

  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, […]

Consumed by the Flames

Artist: Rafael DeSoto

Filed Under: Paperback & Pulp Art, Sorry, It's Sold
Tagged With: Cover Art, illustration, paperback, pulp, Rafael DeSoto
Added to Gallery: August 1, 2018

    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 […]

Dead On Delivery

Artist: Rafael DeSoto

Filed Under: Paperback & Pulp Art, Sorry, It's Sold
Tagged With: lurid, paperback, pulp, Rafael DeSoto
Added to Gallery: July 1, 2018

Grapefruit Moon Gallery is delighted to offer a fresh-to-the-market macabre oil on canvas pulp cover painting by Rafael DeSoto which appeared on the June, 1948 issue of Dime Mystery Magazine – The Magazine of Weird Mystery. The darkly dramatic scene shows a green skeleton in formal magician’s costume pulling a hot blonde number out of […]

The Last Of Mrs. Satan

Artist: Rafael Desoto

Filed Under: Paperback & Pulp Art, Sorry, It's Sold
Tagged With: Dime Mystery Magazine, macabre, magician, noir, pulp, Rafael DeSoto, The Golden Gallery
Added to Gallery: April 17, 2016

On offer is a defining menace-themed oil on canvas pulp cover painting by Rafael DeSoto which appeared on the October, 1934 issue of Black Book Detective Magazine, with an occult scene evoking the mysteries of Halloween. A provocatively posed blonde in rapturous abandon stands before the eerie fire of a cauldron, holding the flames in her hands and proving […]

Blaze of Glory

Artist: Rafael Desoto

Filed Under: Paperback & Pulp Art, Sorry, It's Sold
Tagged With: 1930s, fantasy, halloween, magazine cover, original illustration art, pulp, Rafael DeSoto, The Golden Gallery
Added to Gallery: November 4, 2015

A classic bad girl paperback cover illustration by the gifted and prolific Rafael DeSoto for the 1951 Signet Book release of Frances Clippinger’s Elinda (The Satellite). Text reads “She Knew All The Tricks – And Used Them”. There has been a recent interest in this era of paperbacks by historians and savvy art collectors, previous auction records by the leading cover artists such as Rudy Nappi, Raymond Pease and James Avati have been recently obliterated as selections from the Charles Martignette collection have found their way to auction.

Elinda The Satellite

Artist: Rafael DeSoto

Filed Under: Paperback & Pulp Art, Sorry, It's Sold
Tagged With: 1950s, american, Charles Martignette, paperback, Rafael DeSoto
Added to Gallery: February 12, 2011

 

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