The Golden Gallery

Featured within The Golden Gallery are works by influential artists such as Rolf Armstrong, Gil Elvgren and Earl Moran. These important paintings represent the pinnacle of illustration art , we trust you will enjoy this curated selection of genre-defining examples and unsurpassed rarities from the Grand Age of American Illustration.

George Petty’s enormously successful career as an illustrator began in the mid-1920s painting magazine covers and images of beautiful girls for calendars. The creation that made him legendary debuted in the first issue of Esquire magazine in 1933. The “Petty Girl,” with her dreamy curves and witty banter, quickly became a popular symbol of the American male’s feminine ideal.Esquire produced two other calendars by Petty in 1955 and 1956. This painting appeared as the September Petty Girl in the 1956 Esquire calendar. Rendered in watercolor on board, nicely framed and ready to hang.

Petty Girl, September 1956

Artist: George Petty

Grapefruit Moon Gallery is ecstatic to offer Zoe Mozert’s 1950 pastel “Song of the Desert”. This is by all accounts the artist’s crowning achievement and most famous image. A luminous masterwork from the golden age of American pin up, it is one of the most widely circulated and printed pin-up images of all time. Enticingly, this is a self-portrait of Mozert, who made a name for herself both as the most famous female American illustrator of her day and a frequent model for her erotically charged illustrations.

Song of the Desert

Artist: Zoe Mozert

A large and fresh (in all respects) original pastel illustration by Rolf Armstrong, the father of American pin up. Created in 1940 for the Brown & Bigelow Calendar Company and titled “Let’s Get Together” this features a streamlined modernist view of model Dorothy Conover in as close to a situational pin-up entanglement as Armstrong cared to venture. For many years this was in the collection of Armstrong model and confidante Jewel Flowers.

Let’s Get Together

Artist: Rolf Armstrong

A dazzling original calendar published oil painting by Henry Clive titled “A Seaside Flirtation” created for the Joseph Hoover Calendar Company. Henry Clive joyously captures the essence of the jazz-age and the roaring 20s modernist flapper girl, this is a grand depiction. From the estate of Charles Martignette, the noted author, historian and collector. This rare surviving painting is lavishly framed, silk matted and ready to enjoy. A 1934 advertising calendar is included in the sale.

A Seaside Flirtation

Artist: Henry Clive

A bold, defining and lurid pastel cover illustration for The July 1942 “Expose Detective True Crime Cases” illustrating the interior story “Sex Was My Racket”. In this case the tables are turned to lurid effect as the typically menaced pin-up queen cover girl is brandishing a large gleaming knife and a hard boiled outlook. A large and desirable rare surviving example of the detective genre of the Spicy Pulps. From the important estate of Charles Martignette, co-author of “The Great American Pin-up”.

Sex Was My Racket

Artist: Cardwell Higgins

Grapefruit Moon Gallery is delighted to offer this spectacularly executed, and exceedingly rare surviving original painting by Henry Clive of the glamorous silent era Hollywood superstar Gloria Swanson. Clive, a staff illustrator at Paramount, executed a series of portraits for for the film studio of stars including Rudolph Valentino, Mae Murray, Pola Negri, Betty Compson, Jackie Coogan and Charlie Chaplin. These portraits graced the lids of 1920s Canco company tins, and this is the only original painting from the series known to exist. It is truly rare treasure from the Lost Era of Hollywood.

Portrait of Gloria Swanson

Artist: Henry Clive

A large and magnificent rare surviving signed F. Earl Christy pastel advertising illustration on canvas for “The Princess Pat” Cosmetic Company. A defining glamorous pin-up girl with a chic and elegantly sophisticated jazz-age style and modernist machine age aesthetic. F. Earl Christy was a prolific early 1900’s illustrator who’s career spanned four decades. We rarely come across his original works this is an estate fresh large and luminous example from his best period nicely matted and framed in a pristine state of original conservation.

Princess Pat Cosmetics Flapper Girl

Artist: Earl Christy

A rare surviving early signed cover painting by Enoch Bolles for the October 1925 issue of Film Fun Magazine. A delightful modernist flapper girl envisioned as only Bolles could see, titled “Port ‘O Dreams”. Painting is initialed lower middle and in a fine state of preservation. Recent auction records for this artist have topped $30,000.00 and as collectors know his original cover works are very scarce.

Port ‘O Dreams

Artist: Enoch Bolles

A large scale impressive oil on stretched canvas by noted New York City illustrator Howard Chandler Christy titled “Surrender of the Blockhouse, Spanish-American War”. A boldly rendered impressionist work that depicts one of the war’s climactic battle scenes of 1898. Signed lower left and framed with a title plaque. Stretcher bar bears the notation “Oct. Cover.” This is a defining example of the artist’s historically impactful work that deftly shows Christy’s expertise in making battle scenes come to life.

Surrender of the Blockhouse

Artist: Howard Chandler Christy

A luminous and sensational oil on canvas by Charles Edward Chambers, a masterful magazine and advertising illustrator of the jazz age. Chambers created this remarkable, highly sensuous Polynesian enchantress scene as a commissioned interior magazine illustration, likely for Cosmopolitan where he was under exclusive contract for many years. This uninhibited and erotic island dance scene is one of Chambers’ finest paintings, and a masterful example of early 20th century exoticism in illustration.

Fire Dancer

Artist: Charles Edward Chambers

« Previous Page