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 genre defining original illustration painting for the October 1956 edition of Imagination Science Fiction for the interior story by Edmond Hamilton titled Citadel Of The Star Lords. By Lloyd Rognan (1923-2005) an Original oil on illustration board depicting ufo’s , rayguns, mayhem and all things lurid sci-fi, set amongst the ruins of a town center square anytown USA circa 1950’s. The artist recently passed away and many works were recently auctioned off directly from his estate. This to my eyes was one of the defining work by this highly regarded and frequently published illustrator.

Citadel Of The Star Lords

Artist: Lloyd Rognan

A genuinely magical illustration from the 1940 John C. Winston Co.’s publication of the Oscar Wilde classic The Happy Prince and Other Tales. This watercolor on board is a colorful and evocative rendering of the climactic scene from Wilde’s emotionally complex parable of Christian love. The illustration depicts the selfish giant gazing upon the boy who warmed his heart, as the boy bleeds from stigmata-like wounds. Everett Shinn was the youngest of a loosely associated group of New York-based social realist illustrators who were termed, by their critics, the Ashcan school, for their gritty style, often ugly depictions of humanity, and fixation on urban scenes. Shinn’s illustrators today are revered for the manner in which these themes are juxtaposed with gentle beauty.

The Selfish Giant

Artist: Everett Shinn

Original cover art from a story by Private Robert Ross Carney from the pages of the July 1972 Adventure for Men. Story is titled The Battle The Big Brass Bungled. Artwork is a gouache on illustration board and nicely matted and framed. A genre defining noir World War II daring rescue depiction with the required damsel in distress and the menacing SS officers getting foiled by sheer tenacity and by the element of suprise. ( Not unlike a vintage Hogan’s Heroes T.V. episode…) By the well listed illustrator and pulp cover artist George Gross.

Battle The Big Brass Bungled

Artist: George Gross

A dramatic and rare, original Art Deco/Jazz Age watercolor of 3 nudes, dated 1929, and titled on verso The White Muse, of unknown application by noted illustrator and muralist Andre Durceneau. Defines the Art Deco Severe aesthetic and is a wonderful work. Primarily known as a painter and muralist, Andre Durenceau’s artistic oeuvre has spanned many years and many illustrations, and his work that survives is highly prized. Many consider him to be one of the greatest muralists of all time.

The White Muse

Artist: Andre Durenceau

I am pleased to offer a wonderfully executed original pastel by Rolf Armstrong that was used as a College Humor Magazine cover (February 1933) and also as a pair of Brown & Bigelow calendar prints titled Lets Go Places and a cropped “head only” version titled Florence published a few years later in 1937. A skillfully executed and elaborately detailed (and large for the artist) pastel of a sassy, beret-wearing blonde and her Scottish terrier. Classic good girl imagery by the father of American Pin-up.

Lets Go Places

Artist: Rolf Armstrong

A glamorous and devine large rendering of beautiful screen star siren Gene Tierney in pastel done in 1936 and used for a cover of True Confessions Magazine, January 1940. A defining work by noted Brown & Bigelow pin-up artist and prolific cover illustrator Zoe Mozert . Mozert executed over 400 covers for such titles as Screen Book, True Romance, True Confessions and Randolph Hearst’s American Weekly. This is an examplatory example of Zoe’s Hollywood Portraiture and is in pristine condition with original gilt ornate frame.

Gene Tierney

Artist: Zoe Mozert

A rare and outstanding situational pin-up painting used as calendar art for The Louis F. Dow Calendar Co., circa 1950. Image is playfully titled A Double Catch. 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. Great composition and outdoors man-themed, fly fishing/rainbow trout scene in perfect flawless condition as seen.

A Double Catch

Artist: Vaughan Bass

A fantastic and phrenetic original art deco era illustration of a nude nymph sea sprite and friends riding a school of flying fish ! Original use is unknown; looks like a pulp cover or perhaps an early Science & Invention cover to these eyes . A defining and whimsical example by the American Artist Charles W. Pancoast, who is credited with illustrating the 1907 edition of BLACK BEAUTY: The Autobiography of a Horse by Dodge Publishing Company, New York.

A Nude Sea Sprite On A Flying Fish

Artist: Charles Pancoast

Rare surviving original illustration art for Rogue for Men Magazine. A lurid genre defining cover by Lloyd Rognan for an April 1956 edition . Rognan had a long and prolific career as an illustrator, he studied with an early WPA art student project, contributed regularily for Stars and Stripes. Later his science fiction pulp artwork appeared as covers for such publications as Fate, Imagination, ImaginativeTales, and other sci fi pulp magazines exploiting the “pre-Apollo” moon mission space travel craze. This is a particularily rich interpretation of a Men’s magazine cover, and finally someone had the nerve to portray things as seen here.

Man the Beast

Artist: Lloyd Rognan

This is the second of a pair of institution-sized monumental hand-tinted highlighted fine art prints that were displayed in New York City at the Metropolitan Museum of Art after the turn of the last century. They found their way to a convent in the Midwest and recently went up for sale. We are proud to offer this most unusual Edwin Austin Abbey, King Lear, A Farewell To Cordelia .

King Lear

Artist: Edwin Austin Abbey

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