The orginal painting takes inspiration from the suffering Burne Hogarth saw growing up in the Depression and is influenced by the WPA regionalist movement.
Artist: Burne Hogarth
surreal
With psychedelic, folk art, and art nouveau inspired style, this fine art surreal nude by Ted Coconis captures a nude erotic goddess dancing above the clouds, surrounded by smaller figures that draw on iconography from a number of different cultures. The cherub and bear and foreshortened men who gloat behind her, all suggest something […]
Artist: Ted Coconis
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.
Artist: Lloyd Birmingham
A stark, eerie, machine age/industrial revolution 1938 Works Progress Administration sponsored oil painting by Thomas Tyrone Comfort, this darkly modernist view titled “Heat on Steel” features a haunting view of an arc welder at work in a surrealist factory. This large scale painting was created as public art and exhibited by the Federal Arts Project in 1938 and retains its original verso label. 1938 marked the height of the WPA art movement, and Comfort was one of its promising talents, creating evocatively expressive, and moody visions of Depression era science and industry.
Artist: Tyrone Comfort
An early published and signed oil on canvas by John A. Coughlin for an as of yet unidentified Street & Smith pulp title. The hand of a New York City police officer is seen menacing a formally attired crowd in a surreal, chaotic action packed moment. A rare surviving original cover painting from The Golden Age of Illustration and a recent Pennsylvania estate find. Verso is titled “You Can’t Win” with a partial Street & Smith publishing label as seen. Relined and restretched and ready to frame and enjoy.
Artist: John Coughlin
Featuring a Depression-era machinist at work creating a Pratt & Whitney aircraft engine, this 1940 artwork by WPA artist Alton Tobey combines the unusual muted palate and composition of the regionalist movement with the dystopian feel of the surrealists. This powerful oil on canvas was created for the East Hartford Pratt & Whitney plant, and presents a deeply moving picture of industrialism in the lead up to World War II.
Artist: Alton Tobey
An extraordinary and experimental early work by Hannes Bok, featuring a bizarre surreal landscape with a young boy riding a prehistoric creature. Hannes Bok was the pseudonym of Wayne Woodard, a self taught artist who was fascinated by the luminous quality of Maxfield Parrish’s oil paintings.
Upon a visit from the impoverished teenage Bok, and impressed by the examples of Bok’s work, Parrish gave Bok an expensive set of oil paints and brushes to help the teenager build on his obvious gifts.
Artist: Hannes Bok
