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Grapefruit Moon Gallery

Original Art from the Grand Age of American Illustration

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subversive

A subversive youth gone wild party scene original cover painting by Peter Driben likely used for a paperback book title published by the Novel Library imprint. During the 1950s a hedonistic bohemian fictional sub-culture existed where teens smoked reefer and engaged in orgiastic exploits while becoming addicted to heroin. In showing these delinquents pursuing their darkest sinful desires, the illustrators of the day seemed to take great joy and this is a prime example of this sort of homage to debauchery.

The Make Out Room

Artist: Peter Driben

Filed Under: Pin-Up & Glamour Art, Sorry, It's Sold
Tagged With: 1950s, american, bohemian, Charles Martignette, illustration, Novel Library, original cover art, paperback, Peter Driben, pin up, pulp, sleaze, subversive
Added to Gallery: February 3, 2018

Teen-Age Gangs was created by Rafael Desoto as cover art for a 1954 Popular Library Paperback Book written by Dale Kramer and Madeline Karr. A gritty defining example which shows a bleak sensationalized, youth gone wild culture, which was to captured the moral panic over juvenile delinquency that was a focal point of American culture […]

Teen-Age Gangs

Artist: Rafael Desoto

Filed Under: Paperback & Pulp Art, Sorry, It's Sold
Tagged With: 1950s, american, Gang, Golden Age, original cover art, original illustration art, paperback, pulp, subversive, Teen-Age Gangs, The Golden Gallery
Added to Gallery: August 4, 2017

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 asĀ “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 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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