Tom Lovell Art
American, 1909-1997
“A storyteller with a brush, a custodian of the past” is how illustrator Tom Lovell once described himself. Lovell is regarded as one of the 20th century’s leading Western artists, with his work including figurative paintings of important historical events, portraits of homespun American life and thought-provoking illustrations for publications such as Life, National Geographic and The Saturday Evening Post.
Born in 1909 in New York City, Lovell spent his childhood in Nutley, New Jersey, where he developed a keen interest in art and Native American culture. He often visited New York’s American Museum of Natural History, where he would sketch Native American clothing, weapons and artifacts.
Lovell studied art at Syracuse University, where he roomed with future well-known illustrator Harry Anderson. While there, he began his illustration career by selling his work to pulp magazines. Later, he illustrated for publications such as The American, Cosmopolitan and Women’s Home Companion.
During World War II, Lovell enlisted with the Marine Corps Reserve and created illustrations for the Marine Corps’s Leatherneck magazine and the Marine Corps Gazette. He also completed several large paintings chronicling historical military events; they are now displayed at the Marine Corps headquarters in Washington, DC.
After the war, Lovell continued illustrating for magazines like Collier’s, Redbook, Ladies’ Home Journal and McCall’s, which featured “Day of Yellow Flowers,” one of his better-known illustrations. He contributed a series of historical works, including his famous Civil War painting “Surrender at Appomattox,” to National Geographic.
Throughout the 1960s, he was increasingly fascinated with the American Southwest. In 1975, Lovell and his family moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he found inspiration for his landscapes that depict Native American and Old West culture.
Lovell received numerous accolades throughout his career. In 1974, the Society of Illustrators named him a Hall of Fame Laureate. In 1992, the National Academy of Western Art and National Cowboy Museum honored him with a Lifetime Achievement Award. Lovell is the only artist to have won the National Cowboy Museum’s invitational Prix de West exhibition twice.
Lovell died in 1997. His illustrations and paintings continue to be prized by Western art and Americana collectors.
On 1stDibs, discover a range of Tom Lovell’s paintings.
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Formal Affair
By Tom Lovell
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Date: July 1942
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Dimensions: 36.00" x 26.00"
Signature: Signed Lower Left
Illustration for Cosmopolitan magazine.
Tom Lovell’s illustrations range from adventur...
Category
1940s Tom Lovell Art
Materials
Canvas, Oil
Happy Endings
By Tom Lovell
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Medium: Oil on Linen
Signature: Signed and Dated
Story illustration for "Farewell Without Regret" by Sarah-Elizabeth Rodger for Good Housekeeping, published July 1940, page 58.
The...
Category
1940s Tom Lovell Art
Materials
Linen, Oil
Love in the Mist, Magazine Illustration
By Tom Lovell
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Love in the Midst, Magazine Story Illustration
Ladies Home Journal, June 1959
Tom Lovell had an extreme attention for detail and rarely completed more then a dozen major oil pa...
Category
1950s Other Art Style Tom Lovell Art
Materials
Board, Oil
Up the Staircase
By Tom Lovell
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Signature: Signed and Dated Lower Left
Dimensions: Sight Size 30.50" x 34.75," Framed 36.00" x 39.50"
Category
1940s Tom Lovell Art
Materials
Canvas, Oil
Bridal White
By Tom Lovell
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Signature: Signed Lower Right and Titled on reverse
Dimensions: 28.13" x 25.13" (71.45 cm x 63.83 cm)
Literature: Temple Bailey, Bridal White, The American Mag...
Category
1940s Tom Lovell Art
Materials
Canvas, Oil
$35,000
"Farewell Without Regret"
By Tom Lovell
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Signature: Signed Lower Left
Medium: Oil Paint
Story illustration for "Farewell Without Regret" by Sarah-Elizabeth Rodger for Good Housekeeping, published September 1940, page 47.
...
Category
20th Century Tom Lovell Art
Materials
Oil
Penobscot Bay Expedition
By Tom Lovell
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Medium: Oil on Board
Signature: Signed Lower Right
Tom Lovell was well known for his thought provoking illustrations for Life magazine, The Saturday Evening Post and National Geographic. He was the first artist to win the National Academy of Western Art's highest honor, the Prix de West, twice. This lot was painted circa 1960 just before he was commissioned to paint a series of Civil War battle...
Category
1960s Tom Lovell Art
Materials
Oil, Board
Man and Woman Kissing in Swamp
By Tom Lovell
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Medium: Unknown
Signature: Unsigned
Contact for exact dimensions.
Category
20th Century Tom Lovell Art
Materials
Paint
“A Date for the Baby Sitter” Magazine story illustration for Good Housekeeping
By Tom Lovell
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Story illustration for “A Date for the Baby Sitter” by Eileen Herbert Jordan for Good Housekeeping, published December 1958, illustrated pages 58-59
The full caption reads: “Thus Peggy went forth—sailed might be the better word—escorted by part of the Navy.” The snowy scene features a woman and two sailors leaving the house at Christmas time.
Exhibited: The Triumph of Winter, National Arts Club, New York, December 16, 2013- January 5, 2014
Date: 1958
Medium: Oil on Board
Dimensions: 23.20" x 33.50"
Signature: Signed Lower Left
A Native American finding a Raggedy Ann doll...
Category
1950s Tom Lovell Art
Materials
Oil, Board
"You're Not to Tell Anyone"
By Tom Lovell
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Dimensions: 32.00" x 35.00"
Signature: Signed Lower Right
Story illustration for “Mrs. Parkington” by Louis Bromfield for Cosmopolitan, published November 1942, pages 56 and 57.
The full caption reads: “‘And you’re not to tell anyone where you’re going or that you’re going away together,’ Mrs. Parkington said as she told Janie and Ned her plan.”
A Native American finding a Raggedy Ann doll...
Category
Mid-20th Century Tom Lovell Art
Materials
Canvas, Oil
Gondola In Venice, 1947
By Tom Lovell
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Medium: Oil on Masonite
Signature: Signed Upper Left
Original Use: Interior Illustration for The American Magazine
Excellent Condition
This luminous, expressive oil on masonite wa...
Category
1940s Tom Lovell Art
Materials
Masonite, Oil
The Crime Scene, Original Magazine Story Illustration
By Tom Lovell
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Illustration for True magazine, presumably published February 1956.
Nighttime scene of policemen and bloodhounds investigating a murder on a cobblestone street.
Approximate Date: 1956
Medium: Oil on Board
Signature: Signed Lower Right
Size: 22.70" x 16.20"
Tom Lovell Biography:
A Native American finding a Raggedy Ann doll...
Category
1950s Tom Lovell Art
Materials
Board, Oil
Attorney at Sea
By Tom Lovell
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Signature: Signed TOM/LOVELL (lower left); also titled Attorney/at Sea (on the reverse)
Category
20th Century Tom Lovell Art
Materials
Canvas, Oil
$53,000
Columbus Refuses a Plea to Turn Back
By Tom Lovell
Located in Cliffside Park, NJ
Tom Lovell (1909–1997) called himself "a storyteller with a brush," a description appropriate for an artist who spent over five decades capturing the sweep o...
Category
Mid-20th Century Realist Tom Lovell Art
Materials
Oil Pastel, Oil, Board, Illustration Board
"You love my island already” Story illustration for Woman’s Home Companion
By Tom Lovell
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Original magazine story illustration for “A Summer to Remember” by Marjorie Marks for Woman’s Home Companion, published January 1948, pages 20-21. The full caption reads: “‘You love ...
Category
1950s Tom Lovell Art
Materials
Oil, Canvas
"Every Sunday, Mowbray and the boy had dinner together"
By Tom Lovell
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Approximate Date: 1957
Medium: Oil on Board
Signature: Signed Lower Left
Size: 18.70" x 27.00"
Story illustration for The Master Move by George Loveridge, published in Good Housekeeping, November 1957.
An excerpt from the story reads: “In the evening Mowbray dined at a mahogany table designed to seat ten persons. To his left, in an intricate, gilded frame, hung an oil portrait of his father — a man with a majestic, full gray beard and the same beaked nose that his son had, but with milder eyes (p. 237)…Every Sunday, Mowbray and the boy had dinner together, the two of them at the long, broad, polished table under the eyes of Peter Mowbray. Mowbray often had to fly hundreds of miles to be on time for Sunday dinner with his son, but he did not once fail to be there.” (p. 239-240)
A Native American finding a Raggedy Ann doll...
Category
1950s Tom Lovell Art
Materials
Board, Oil
Trapper's Morning
By Tom Lovell
Located in Colorado Springs, CO
Original painting signed by the Artist on lower right.
Category
Mid-20th Century Realist Tom Lovell Art
Materials
Gouache
Saratoga Trunk
By Tom Lovell
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Signature: Signed Lower Right
Category
1940s Tom Lovell Art
Materials
Canvas, Oil
The Glass Fortress
By Tom Lovell
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Signed Lower Right by Artist
Lawrence Williams and Nell O’Day, “The Glass Fortress,” American Magazine, August 1950, illustrated, n.p.
Daniel Zimmer, Tom Lovell: Illustrator, Decatu...
Category
1950s Tom Lovell Art
Materials
Oil
Below Deck
By Tom Lovell
Located in Miami, FL
Charles Martignette
Heritage Auctions, This is a Wonderfully rendered work with high level of detail and color saturation. Norman Rockwellesqu...
Category
1950s Realist Tom Lovell Art
Materials
Gouache
Memoirs Of Casanova, Paperback Cover
By Tom Lovell
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Cover for The Memoirs of Casanova (Bantam books #FB-415, 1957): A New Edition of the French Translation by Lowell Blair
Memoirs of Casanova, Paperback Cover, 1957
Tom Lovell ha...
Category
1950s Other Art Style Tom Lovell Art
Materials
Board, Oil
Gold Mining Camp
By Tom Lovell
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Signature: Signed Lower Right
Dimensions: Sight Size 18.75" x 26.00;" Framed 26.00" x 33.00"
Category
20th Century Tom Lovell Art
Materials
Canvas, Oil
$11,000
Blondin Crossing Niagara
By Tom Lovell
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Medium: Oil on Masonite
Signature: Signed Lower Left
This piece was published as an illustration in True Magazine titled "Blondin Crossing Niagara" in 1953. Born Jean-François Grave...
Category
1950s Tom Lovell Art
Materials
Masonite, Oil
Artist Muse
By Tom Lovell
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Signature: Signed Lower Right
Category
20th Century Tom Lovell Art
Materials
Canvas, Oil
$15,000
In the Garden
By Tom Lovell
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Two women in a garden and two men walking and talking in the background.
A Native American finding a Raggedy Ann doll on a lonely western road. A ...
Category
1940s Other Art Style Tom Lovell Art
Materials
Canvas, Oil
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Previously Available Items
Man and Woman Kissing in Swamp
By Tom Lovell
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Medium: Unknown
Signature: Unsigned
Contact for exact dimensions.
Category
20th Century Tom Lovell Art
Materials
Paint
The Mutiny
By Tom Lovell
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Medium: Oil on Board
Signature: Signed lower Left
Category
20th Century Tom Lovell Art
Materials
Oil, Board
Balloonists Struggle to Escape a Doomed Gondola
By Tom Lovell
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Medium: Oil on Board
Signature: Signed Lower Left
Provenance:
Commissioned by the National Geographic Society.
Exhibitions:
Stockbridge, Massachusetts, The Norman Rockwell Museum,...
Category
20th Century Tom Lovell Art
Materials
Oil, Board
Saturday Evening Post Story Illustration
By Tom Lovell
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Date: 1942
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Dimensions: 36.00" x 26.00"
Signature: Signed Lower Left
Story illustration for Saturday Evening Post magazine, 1942, page 47.
A Native American finding a Raggedy Ann doll...
Category
1940s Tom Lovell Art
Materials
Canvas, Oil
Tom Lovell art for sale on 1stDibs.
Find a wide variety of authentic Tom Lovell art available for sale on 1stDibs. You can also browse by medium to find art by Tom Lovell in paint, oil paint, fabric and more. Not every interior allows for large Tom Lovell art, so small editions measuring 1 inch across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Howard Chandler Christy, Robert Riggs, and Byron Browne. Tom Lovell art prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $9,500 and tops out at $125,000, while the average work can sell for $24,000.