• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Key Artists
    • Rolf Armstrong
    • Mahlon Blaine
    • Henry Clive
    • Gil Elvgren
    • Cardwell Higgins
    • Earl Moran
    • Charles Gates Sheldon
    • Arthur Prince Spear
    • Bunny Yeager
  • About
  • Browse by Topic
  • Contact

Grapefruit Moon Gallery

Original Art from the Grand Age of American Illustration

  • Gallery Blog
  • Golden Gallery
  • Fine & Decorative
  • Illustration & Advertising
  • Paperback & Pulp
  • Pin-Up & Glamour

space age

The iconic original sci-fi pulp painting by Lloyd Birmingham was created for and used as the cover of “Amazing – Fact and Science Fiction” April 1962. Illustrating the Mark Clifton interior story “Hang Head, Vandal!” this shows a haunting image of a scarecrow made from what remains of a spaceman perched up over the plains of a flatly rendered landscape, made up of but a few perspective lines trailing away into the distance creating a surreal and cerebral science fiction fantasy image.

Hang Head, Vandal!

Artist: Lloyd Birmingham

Filed Under: Paperback & Pulp Art, Sorry, It's Sold
Tagged With: 1960s, Amazing Fact and Science Fiction, american, astronaut, illustration, Lloyd Birmingham, magazine cover, original cover art, pulp, scarecrow, science fiction, space age, surreal
Added to Gallery: August 1, 2012

A wonderfully inventive and unique early space-age (dated 1955) gouache calendar illustration by Bill Layne for the Royal 76 Gas Station chain. Showing the companies inventive and modernist machine age state of the art service station facilities. Uniquely embellished by the artist with his familiar elf figures and space exploration themes. Banner flag reads “Tickets Here For Cosmic Ray Absorber”. This is a tremendous futuristic work that should find traction among Petroliana collectors and space-age/atomic age lovers.

Space Age Royal 76 Petroliana

Artist: Bill Layne

Filed Under: Illustration & Advertising Art, Sorry, It's Sold
Tagged With: 1950s, american, Bill Layne, Elf, machine age, modernist, original calendar art, petroliana, service station, space age
Added to Gallery: January 16, 2010

A rare surviving cover painting by Harold H.W. McCauley for the September 1938 edition of Fantastic Adventures; Volume #1 issue #5. This is likely the earliest commissioned pulp cover illustration by the artist. A classic art deco depiction of the perils of the near future space age, as envisioned in the campy, naive era of the 1930s. The mild bondage, damsel in distress content provided an additional titillating shock at the newsstands which carried this early pulp/science fiction title.

Futurist Raygun Firefight

Artist: Harold McCauley

Filed Under: Paperback & Pulp Art, Sorry, It's Sold
Tagged With: 1930s, american, bondage, damsel in distress, Fantastic Adventures, Harold McCauley, magazine cover, original cover art, pin up, pulp, science fiction, space age, The Golden Gallery
Added to Gallery: November 14, 2008

 

Contact Grapefruit Moon Gallery



    Primary Sidebar

    Join our mailing list

    Grapefruit Moon Gallery Around the Web

    • Facebook
    • Instagram

    Copyright © 2025