Arthur Rosenman Ross

American Art Deco 20th Century Modernism Social Realism WPA Era Scene Pin-Up

1933

Art Deco Girl with Car Mid-20th Century American Modernism Pin-Up Illustration Arthur Rosenman Ross (1913 - 1981) Deco Girl with Car, 1936 30 x 20 inches Oil on Canvas Board Signed Arthur ‘36 lower right Provenance: Estate of the artist. BIO Arthur Rosenman Ross was a key figure in automotive design at General Motors during America's "Golden Age" of auto design, the 1930's through the 1950s. He attended the Art Institute of Chicago from age 17, exhibiting a special interest for automotive renderings and the female figure. In 1934, he changed his name from Rosenman to Ross, fearing his Jewish ancestry could prejudice his career prospects. At age 20, he turned down job offers from MGM Studios in Hollywood and Duesenberg to work at General Motors alongside the Legendary Harley Earl in 1935. He was hand picked by Mr. Earl and assigned to GM's War and Camouflage Division in 1937 through WW2. It was during this pivotal period in which he executed some extraordinary military aircraft artworks, likely used between GM and America's military aeronautics companies in design preparation for WW2. General Motors played an important role in helping America's aircraft manufacturers preceding and during the war. Just after the war in 1945, Mr. Ross was rewarded by GM, being made Chief Designer of Cadillac, then two years later becoming Chief at Oldsmobile until his retirement in 1959. He was in large part responsible for some of GM's classic Cadillac designs such as the Cadillac Sixty Special, Fleetwood, LaSalle and GM's first concept car, the extraordinary Buick Y-Job. Mr. Ross was an exceptionally charismatic and vivacious man who quite by chance, befriended His idol, Salvador Dali at GM in 1955. They talked about art, cars and girls late into the evening, according to his son, Carter Ross. He had a gift in rendering the erotic arts...

"Sock Hop" Mid-Century American Modernism WPA Female Artist 20th Century Realism. 30 x 24 inches. Oil on canvas. Signed on stretcher, c. 1940s. Frame is likely original to the painting. Realist painter-printmaker Kyra Markham...

Art Deco Movie Set 20th Century American Modernism Hollywood WPA Social Realism Arthur Rosenman Ross (1913 - 1981) Art Deco Movie Set, Probably MGM Studios, 1937 17 x 27 inches Gouache on illustration Board Signed Art Ross, ‘37 lower right Provenance: Estate of the artist. BIO Arthur Rosenman Ross was a key figure in automotive design at General Motors during America's "Golden Age" of auto design, the 1930's through the 1950s. He attended the Art Institute of Chicago from age 17, exhibiting a special interest for automotive renderings and the female figure. In 1934, he changed his name from Rosenman to Ross, fearing his Jewish ancestry could prejudice his career prospects. At age 20, he turned down job offers from MGM Studios in Hollywood and Duesenberg to work at General Motors alongside the Legendary Harley Earl in 1935. He was hand picked by Mr. Earl and assigned to GM's War and Camouflage Division in 1937 through WW2. It was during this pivotal period in which he executed some extraordinary military aircraft artworks, likely used between GM and America's military aeronautics companies in design preparation for WW2. General Motors played an important role in helping America's aircraft manufacturers preceding and during the war. Just after the war in 1945, Mr. Ross was rewarded by GM, being made Chief Designer of Cadillac, then two years later becoming Chief at Oldsmobile until his retirement in 1959. He was in large part responsible for some of GM's classic Cadillac designs such as the Cadillac Sixty Special, Fleetwood, LaSalle and GM's first concept car, the extraordinary Buick Y-Job. Mr. Ross was an exceptionally charismatic and vivacious man who quite by chance, befriended His idol, Salvador Dali at GM in 1955. They talked about art, cars and girls late into the evening, according to his son, Carter Ross. He had a gift in rendering the erotic arts...

American Scene Social Realism Mid-20th Century WPA Era Woman Artist Children Winnie Borne Sherman (1902-2004) “Ring around the Rosie” Pencil on Paperboard, c. 1930s 13 3/8 H x 15 5...

Barbara Shermund (1899-1978). Showgirls Cartoon for Life Magazine, 1934. Ink, watercolor and gouache on heavy illustration paper, matting window measures 16.5 x 13 inches; sheet measures 19 x 15 inches; Matting panel measures 20 x 23 inches. Signed lower right. Very good condition with discoloration and toning in margins. Unframed. Provenance: Ethel Maud Mott Herman, artist (1883-1984), West Orange NJ. For two decades, she drew almost 600 cartoons for The New Yorker with female characters that commented on life with wit, intelligence and irony. In the mid-1920s, Harold Ross, the founder of a new magazine called The New Yorker, was looking for cartoonists who could create sardonic, highbrow illustrations accompanied by witty captions that would function as social critiques. He found that talent in Barbara Shermund. For about two decades, until the 1940s, Shermund helped Ross and his first art editor, Rea Irvin, realize their vision by contributing almost 600 cartoons and sassy captions with a fresh, feminist voice. Her cartoons commented on life with wit, intelligence and irony, using female characters who critiqued the patriarchy and celebrated speakeasies, cafes, spunky women and leisure. They spoke directly to flapper women of the era who defied convention with a new sense of political, social and economic independence. “Shermund’s women spoke their minds about sex, marriage and society; smoked cigarettes and drank; and poked fun at everything in an era when it was not common to see young women doing so,” Caitlin A. McGurk wrote in 2020 for the Art Students League. In one Shermund cartoon, published in The New Yorker in 1928, two forlorn women sit and chat on couches. “Yeah,” one says, “I guess the best thing to do is to just get married and forget about love.” “While for many, the idea of a New Yorker cartoon conjures a highbrow, dry non sequitur — often more alienating than familiar — Shermund’s cartoons are the antithesis,” wrote McGurk, who is an associate curator and assistant professor at Ohio State University’s Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum. “They are about human nature, relationships, youth and age.” (McGurk is writing a book about Shermund. And yet by the 1940s and ’50s, as America’s postwar focus shifted to domestic life, Shermund’s feminist voice and cool critique of society fell out of vogue. Her last cartoon appeared in The New Yorker in 1944, and much of her life and career after that remains unclear. No major newspaper wrote about her death in 1978 — The New York Times was on strike then, along with The Daily News and The New York Post — and her ashes sat in a New Jersey funeral home...

Elite Discourse is a watercolor and ink drawing on ivory-colored paper, in the 1920s realized by Luigi Bompard (1879-1953). Hand-signed in pen on the lower margin. In good conditio...

Date: 1920 Medium: Charcoal and Watercolor on Board Dimensions: 16.00" x 19.00" Signature: Signed and Inscription Lower Right Corner 1920s parlor scene. ...

The Discussion is a watercolor and ink drawing on ivory-colored paper, in the 1930s realized by Luigi Bompard (1879-1953). Hand-signed on the lower margin. In good condition, excep...