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.

A large and bold, early 20th century patriotic German David and Goliath scene, by one of the defining “official” painters of the German empire and later, the Third Reich. This classically styled, expertly rendered scene features a highly eroticized nude David standing strong against the imposing Goliath force. This deeply allegorical mythical painting pronounces the vitality and virility of the German nation, a theme which dominated Nationalist German art throughout the late 19th and early 20th century, even as more abstract movements like German Sucessionism and the Jugendstihl gained prominence internationally.

David and Goliath

Artist: Arthur Kampf

A delicate and dazzling example of Wladyslaw Theodor Benda’s portraiture with an exotic stylized Benda Girl. A mixed media work, on a verso addressed illustration board with a demure and soft focused masterfully conceived mysterious ingenue. This was presumably done as cover art and the back is dated 1928. Looks very much like covers done for Hearst’s International or The Shrine Magazine.

An Exotic Benda Girl Glamour Beauty

Artist: Wladyslaw Benda

A defining huge original charcoal on board of a divine bathing beauty in a smart, streamlined art deco style by the American Illustrator McClelland Barclay. Model looks to be Gracie Allen and this was most likely used in the General Motors Body by Fisher Advertising campaign for which Barclay is fondly remembered. Work is a defining example by this talented and prolific artist and beautifully matted and framed.

Body By Fisher Pin Up Bathing Beauty

Artist: McClelland Barclay

A large, masterfully rendered, noir dramatic interior illustration by Cecil Calvert Beall. From the illustrated serialization of Sax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu, published by Collier’s Magazine in 1948. Comes with a copy of the published magazine, artwork is beautifully framed in a period gold gesso ornate frame. Story caption reads “In a dazzling, crackling flash, Nayland Smith saw a lump of solid steel not melt, but disentigrate, vanish! A pinch of gray powder alone remained.”

Shadow Of Fu Manchu

Artist: C. C. Beall

A large original commissioned pin-up genre pastel on illustration board by Knute O. Munson for a 1952 Brown & Bigelow Calendar titled Our Knowledge and Experience At Your Command. This was given to a store owner in Tulsa Oklahoma decades earlier by the regional Brown & Biglelow salesman there as a reward for advertising with his company. It is cleverly signed lower left on the spine of one of the books.

Our Knowledge & Experience At Your Command

Artist: K. O. Munson

A serene and expertly rendered early original pastel from the admired female Jazz Age illustrator Neysa McMein. This illustration was created as the cover of the October 1921 issue of Woman’s Home Companion. Pictured is New York City blue blood debutante and silent movie star Mrs. Lydig (Julia) Hoyt. McMein gained notoriety in the 1920’s and 30’s as an independent, feminist minded free spirit. She roamed with the Algonquin Round Table set crowd of heavy drinking, free spirited New York City intellengtsia.

A Portrait of Julia Hoyt

Artist: Neysa McMein

This is an absolutely exquisite pastel in the pre-Raphaelite style which depicts a climactic scene from “The Geste of Duke Joceyln.” Originally used as the frontispiece for the light verse novel by popular English author Jeffrey Farnol, the scene features the fetching Duchess Yolande being presented at court after winning the heart of Duke Jocelyn. This is a shining example of Eric Pape’s whimsical yet classic style of illustrating, and features remarkable use of color and detailing. Pape was a well-regarded and often-exhibited artist from the turn of the 20th century until his death in 1938. His original art is highly coveted and recently his pastel work has fetched $45,000.00 at Christies. This epic pastel is one of the nicest examples of Pape’s work I have come across.

Duchess Yolande

Artist: Eric Pape

scarce surviving original Indian Maiden themed mixed media work by L. Goddard. Used as a published calendar by The Thomas D. Murphy Calendar Company, Red Oak Iowa in the early 1920’s with the title Minnehaha, Laughing Water. In original ornate incredible gesso frame. Comes with a dated 1926 sample calendar featuring the published artwork.

Minnehaha, Laughing Water

Artist: L. Goddard

A defining and flat out extrordinary original illustration painting for a as of yet undetermined science fiction pulp magazine cover By Lloyd Rognan (1923-2005). An Original oil on Norlin illustration board depicting space travelers among the ruins of a railroad union station from the 1950’s. Present in the image are advertising icons such as Kodak and the B & O Railroad. The artist recently passed away and many works were recently auctioned off directly from his estate. This to my eyes was the defining work by this highly regarded and frequently published illustrator.

Spicy Pulp Pin Up Girl Space & Time Traveler

Artist: Lloyd Rognan

A rare and outstanding situational pin-up painting used as calendar art for The Louis F. Dow Calendar Co., circa 1940’s- 50’s. Image is playfully titled Snowshoes it also appeared as a calendar print titled Alask-Ann. This was purchased by a gentleman the day he got back from the Viet Nam War in the early 1970’s. The Dow Calendar Company rented a downtown Saint Paul hotel and sold off their paintings and original calendar art at $50.00 a painting! This is a major find and has never been on the market since it was purchased thirty years ago. He created the “Wonder Bread Girl” in the 1950’s using his daughter Nancy as his model. His portrait of President Dwight D. Eisenhower is in the Smithsonian institution in Washington D.C.

Alask-Ann

Artist: Vaughan Bass

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