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Grapefruit Moon Gallery

Original Art from the Grand Age of American Illustration

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Rudy Nappi

Bold, large and provocative, a sensational scandalous paperback cover painting by Rudy Nappi which was created for use as the cover of French Alley by Matthew Clay. Part of the Star Novels series of digest sized paperbacks released by Publication House, NYC, this steamy novel follows the proclivities of three young attractive women who endure heartbreak and discover rapture […]

French Alley

Artist: Rudy Nappi

Filed Under: Paperback & Pulp Art, Sorry, It's Sold
Tagged With: 1950s, Golden Age, lesbian, lurid, new orleans, original cover art, original illustration art, paperback, pulp, risque, Rudy Nappi
Added to Gallery: March 1, 2018

This dramatic and lurid oil painting was created by Rudy Nappi as the original cover for the now-infamous Jane Manning novel Reefer Girl, published by Detective House in New York under the Cameo Books imprint in 1953. The cover slug describes the work as “The frank, biting story of a young girl of the slums, and […]

Reefer Girl

Artist: Rudy Nappi

Filed Under: Paperback & Pulp Art, Sorry, It's Sold
Tagged With: drug culture, noir, paperback, Rudy Nappi, sleaze, subversive, The Golden Gallery
Added to Gallery: April 22, 2014

A lustful, original cover painting by Rudy Nappi for the 1959 Tower paperback cover titled A Strange Kind of Love, by Lawrence Block, written under his early pseudonym Sheldon Lord. Billed as a “daring tale of the love life of a writer and his most unusual mistress,” Block has described the story as that of […]

A Strange Kind Of Love

Artist: Rudy Nappi

Filed Under: Paperback & Pulp Art, Sorry, It's Sold
Tagged With: 1950s, american, erotic, Lawrence Block, lurid, noir, original cover art, paperback, pulp, Rudy Nappi, sleaze
Added to Gallery: August 16, 2013

A lurid and genre defining erotic paperback book cover for the 1950 Quarter Books Publishing Company title “Illicit Pleasure” written by Peggy Gaddis. The artwork is unsigned with verso information by our colleague Fred Taraba with affirmation that this work was done by Rudy Nappi. This is an inspired subversive image with our cover girl Linda Blaine showing her “body that could make even the most confirmed woman-hater sit up and beg…” enticing an enlisted man to take notice down at the pier.

Illicit Pleasure

Artist: Rudy Nappi

Filed Under: Paperback & Pulp Art, Sorry, It's Sold
Tagged With: 1950s, american, paperback, pin up, Rudy Nappi, skyline, sleaze, stockings, subversive
Added to Gallery: July 16, 2012

 

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