Robert Funk Fine Art

Famed female illustrator and satirical caricaturist depicts a scene of three figures in a landscape, seen searching in the tall grass. It appeared on page 96 of Number 5, Hackberry ...

Brilliant Italian Illustrator Gianni Benvenuti paints a moody fantasy that illustrates an Australian Fairy Tale. A young and fit Aboriginal man is scene chasing a beautiful Aborigin...

Famed American Illustrator Paul Davis of 1968 Che Guevara poster fame illustrates an article about Whisky from Ireland, Scotland, Canada, and the United States. He executes the wor...

Famed Illustrator Isadore Seltzer paints a fantasy folk guitar in a surreal setting. The viewer looks down at the guitar as it rests in bold red space where foreground and sky blend ...

This work celebrates the customs and folklore of Indigenous People / Eskimo native life. Illustrator Gianni Benvenuti shows a partially clothed Eskimo man lying on his back in a tran...

Richard Taylor is one of the great Cartoonists. He is celebrated for his dry sense of humor and skill in depicting people in subtle narratives. His instantly recognizable style is ...

"Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions" is one of Al Jaffee's signature series. This work was a double-page work that appeared on pages 60 - 61 in Mad Magazine in 1968. Although this w...

E. Simms Campbell was the first and top black commercial artist in the USA for decades. In "Grandma," we see a deeply conceptual work, with the blank canvas as the main point of the...

Santa has a quickie with Mom. Elmer Simms Campbell was the first African American Illustrator to work for major newsstand magazines. Published December, 1963 Signed in pencil lower...

Playboy Magazine ran this joke cartoon illustration in color on page 43 for the October 1960 edition. Signed lower right. The work is executed on a heavy Whatman Illustration board....

With his hands on his hips and a look of contemplation, Bemelmans, with a few lines, captures the essence of a top Chef. This is not a portrait of a specific individual but more of a...

Italian Illustrator Gianni Benvenuti depicts a sword battle in a post-cubist/expressionist style. Without regard for proper perspective, the picture is as representative as it is abs...

Italian Illustrator Gianni Benvenuti depicts a Pushkin's Fairy Tales Princess in a winter landscape of stylized trees with exaggerated curves and twisting branches. The princess is d...

E. Simms Campbel was the first major African American Illustrator. He did covers for Esquire Magazine starting in the 1930s. He created the famous bulging-eyed Esquire Mascot “Esky.” He also worked for The Chicagoan, Cosmopolitan, Ebony, The New Yorker, Playboy, Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life, Pictorial Review, and Redbook. This work, "What do you mean your wife doesn't understand you ---- I'm your wife!" is from Cuties Daily Comic Strip, June 18, 1950 He was inducted into the Society of Illustrators' Hall of Fame in 2002. His work demonstrates a deep and masterfully understanding of drawing figures and faces in an academic but stylized style. "My pleasure, boys. Always glad to see a delegation from the States." From the Playboy Collection...

This Portrait of an African Man by an African American artist exhibits penetrating psychological insight and is executed in vibrant colors with quick gestural post-expressionist brus...

A black hippie enthroned in a majestic red sombrero is captured playing a flute at a Central Park music festival in 1969. This was the same year the youth "counterculture" celebrat...

Four East Village down-and-out derelicts and apparent friends sit on a step and engage in a lively chat. They are smoking and drinking. Street Photographer Mitchell Funk captures the...

This beautiful work by the great American Illustrator Bob Peak has a sister work in the collection of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angles. We feel that our work has a little more detail, complexity and dimension to it as the beautiful female figure seems to be floating in an endless sky of dreamy colors. Portrait of beautiful woman, Large powerfully sensual deco-esque work by America's Master of the Movie Poster. Bob Peak. Some of the movie posters Peak has worked on. West Side Story, Rollerball, Star Trek, Superman, Excalibur, Apocalypse Now, The Spy Who Loved Me. My Fair Lady, Camelot and Enter the Dragon. Additionally, Peak illustrated 45 covers of Time Magazine and many covers for Sports Illustrated, TV Guide. Signed lower center Private Collection Georges Delerue...

This impeccably rendered mid-century double portrait of a quarreling man and woman exhibits a supreme academic training knowledge lost in almost all contemporary art. It features an ...

Apocalypse in 1962? At the height of the Cold War, Life Magazine commissions an illustration that describes the world's end by means other than a nuclear war with Russia. Richard Erdoes brilliantly illustrates the work with his highly stylized painting technique. My favorite part of the work is on the left side showing a group of people packed together as they fall into oblivion. A clear reference would be Hieronymus Bosch's "The Last Judgment " Once Again the World Ends." Illustration published in Life Magazine, Feb. 9, 1962 Signed in lower right image. Unframed Richard Erdoes (Hungarian Erdős, German Erdös; July 7, 1912 – July 16, 2008) was an American artist, photographer, illustrator and author. Early life Erdoes was born in Frankfurt,[1] to Maria Josefa Schrom on July 7, 1912. His father, Richárd Erdős Sr., was a Jewish Hungarian opera singer who had died a few weeks earlier in Budapest on June 9, 1912.[2] After his birth, his mother lived with her sister, the Viennese actress Leopoldine ("Poldi") Sangora,[3] He described himself as "equal parts Austrian, Hungarian and German, as well as equal parts Catholic, Protestant and Jew..."[4] Career He was a student at the Berlin Academy of Art in 1933, when Adolf Hitler came to power. He was involved in a small underground paper where he published anti-Hitler political cartoons which attracted the attention of the Nazi regime. He fled Germany with a price on his head. Back in Vienna, he continued his training at the Kunstgewerbeschule, now the University of Applied Arts, Vienna.[5] He also wrote and illustrated children's books and worked as a caricaturist for Tag and Stunde, anti-Nazi newspapers. After the Anschluss of Austria in 1938 he fled again, first to Paris, where he studied at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere, and then London, England before journeying to the United States. He married his first wife, fellow artist Elsie Schulhof (d. xxxx) in London, shortly before their arrival in New York City. In New York City, Erdoes enjoyed a long career as a commercial artist, and was known for his highly detailed, whimsical drawings. He created illustrations for such magazines as Stage, Fortune, Pageant, Gourmet, Harper's Bazaar, Sports Illustrated, The New York Times, Time, National Geographic and Life Magazine, where he met his second wife, Jean Sternbergh (d. 1995) who was an art director there. The couple married in 1951 and had three children.[6] Erdoes also illustrated many children's books. An assignment for Life in 1967 took Erdoes to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation for the first time, and marked the beginning of the work for which he would be best known. Erdoes was fascinated by Native American culture, outraged at the conditions on the reservation and deeply moved by the Civil Rights Movement that was raging at the time. He wrote histories, collections of Native American stories...

"They paved paradise and put up a parking lot," Joni Mitchell said. - - Created in 1969, at the dawn of the American environmental movement, artist Richard Erdoes draws a sequential narrative in the form of a coil. From inception to destruction, it illustrates a list of things that humans are doing to destroy the world we live in. The work was commissioned for school-age humans and executed in a whimsically comic way. Yet the underlying narrative is sophisticated and foreshadows a world that could be on the brink of ecological disaster. Graphically and conceptually, this work exhibits an endless amount of creativity and Erdoes cartoony style is one to fall in love with. Signed lower right. Unframed 12.4 inches Width: 12.85 inches Height is the live area. Board is 16x22 inches. Richard Erdoes (Hungarian Erdős, German Erdös; July 7, 1912 – July 16, 2008) was an American artist, photographer, illustrator and author. Early life Erdoes was born in Frankfurt,to Maria Josefa Schrom on July 7, 1912. His father, Richárd Erdős Sr., was a Jewish Hungarian opera singer who had died a few weeks earlier in Budapest on June 9, 1912.After his birth, his mother lived with her sister, the Viennese actress Leopoldine ("Poldi") Sangora,He described himself as "equal parts Austrian, Hungarian and German, as well as equal parts Catholic, Protestant and Jew..."[4] Career He was a student at the Berlin Academy of Art in 1933, when Adolf Hitler came to power. He was involved in a small underground paper where he published anti-Hitler political cartoons which attracted the attention of the Nazi regime. He fled Germany with a price on his head. Back in Vienna, he continued his training at the Kunstgewerbeschule, now the University of Applied Arts, Vienna.[5] He also wrote and illustrated children's books and worked as a caricaturist for Tag and Stunde, anti-Nazi newspapers. After the Anschluss of Austria in 1938 he fled again, first to Paris, where he studied at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere, and then London, England before journeying to the United States. He married his first wife, fellow artist Elsie Schulhof (d. xxxx) in London, shortly before their arrival in New York City. In New York City, Erdoes enjoyed a long career as a commercial artist, and was known for his highly detailed, whimsical drawings. He created illustrations for such magazines as Stage, Fortune, Pageant, Gourmet, Harper's Bazaar, Sports Illustrated, The New York Times, Time, National Geographic and Life Magazine, where he met his second wife, Jean Sternbergh (d. 1995) who was an art director there. The couple married in 1951 and had three children.[6] Erdoes also illustrated many children's books. An assignment for Life in 1967 took Erdoes to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation for the first time, and marked the beginning of the work for which he would be best known. Erdoes was fascinated by Native American culture, outraged at the conditions on the reservation and deeply moved by the Civil Rights Movement that was raging at the time. He wrote histories, collections of Native American stories...

A stylized horse is depicted grazing in an abstract landscape. Most likely, the location is Woodstock, New York, where the artist lived. Signed Lower Right; Framed; Note: titled and signed on verso. Ethel Magafan (August 10, 1916 – April 24, 1993) was an American painter and muralist. Magafan was born in Chicago to Greek parents who had recently immigrated to the U.S. The family soon relocated to Colorado Springs, Colorado, and Magafan's artistic training occurred at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center under the tutelage of Peppino Mangravite, Boardman Robinson and Frank Mechau, who hired Magafan and her twin sister, Jenne, to assist on mural projects. In 1937, aEthel won the commission to paint a mural in the U.S. post office in Auburn, Nebraska, making her the youngest recipient of such a commission. It would be the first of seven government-sponsored commissions for the artist. Murals "Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans, January 8, 1814" E. Magafan, 1943 Under President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, several programs were created to employ Americans during the Great Depression. The Magafan twins worked under the New Deal's Section of Painting and Sculpture, a program that hired thousands of artists to paint murals in public spaces, particularly post offices. Ethel and her twin sister, Jenne Magafan, became widely known for their murals painted during the Great Depression. Ethel received her first of seven Government commissions when she was commissioned to produce a painting for the United States post office in Auburn, Nebraska, titled Threshing.Other murals commissioned by the US Government hang in the United States Senate Chamber, the Social Security Building and the Recorder Deeds Building in Washington, D.C., and in post offices in Wynne, Arkansas, titled Cotton Pickers in 1940; in Madill, Oklahoma, titled Prairie Fire in 1941; and Englewood, Colorado, titled The Horse Corral in 1942.Her final mural, entitled Grant in the Wilderness, was installed in 1979 in the Chancellorsville Visitor Center at the Fredericksburg National Memorial Military Park in Virginia, She was a member of the National Academy of Design. Magafan died April 24, 1993, in Woodstock, New York, at the age of 76. References "Collections National Academy Museum". Retrieved 2017-03-08. "Jenne Magafan". Retrieved 2017-03-08. Marlene Park and Gerald E. Markowitz, Democratic Vistas: Post Offices and Public Art in the New Deal. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1984. "Browse New Deal projects by State and City". Living New Deal. Retrieved 9 January 2015. "Ethel Magafan Passes Away". New York Times. No. Obituary. April 29, 1993. Opitz, Glenn B, Editor, Mantle Fielding's Dictionary of American Painters, Sculptors & Engravers, Apollo Book...

Original illustration was done by Renna for the novel "Journey to the Center of the Earth" by Jules Verne, published in 1963. What makes this work special is how brilliantly the subj...

20th Century Italian Illustrator Gianna Renna depicts a emotionally-charged scene of three men on a raft descending into a fiery abyss. His conception and execution of Jules Verne's ...

Italian illustrator Gianni Benvenuti depicts a dramatic scene from the epic Spanish novel by Miguel de Cervantes. With unrivaled skill, Benvenuti captures a peak moment of drama when...

What makes this work important? It's not that it's a commissioned artwork for a men's 60s pulp adventure magazine depicting the instant a soldier is shot. The big point of the painting is how brilliantly the formal elements are thought out, designed, and executed. John McDermott tells a story using a complex figural composition in an unexpected wide-angle vision. The work is as abstract as it is representation. His use of light is significant because it creates a high-contrast two-color style that bears the mark of its creator. This is a work done by a master artist/illustrator without peers compared to artists living today. If the contemporary art world gave awards for draftsmanship, painting technique, and graphic design .... John McDermott would win the highest accolades. Initialed lower left - unframed John McDermott (August 30, 1919 – April 20, 1977), also known under the pen names J.M. Ryan and Mariner, was an American illustrator and author noted for action and adventure illustrations.[1] McDermott worked as an in-between and effects animator for Walt Disney Studios and as a US Marine combat artist,before establishing himself as a cover illustrator for 1950s paperbacks and pulp magazines such as Argosy, American Weekly, and Outdoor Life. Under his J.M. Ryan pen name, he wrote the novels The Rat Factory (1971), a derogatory satire of Walt Disney and the Disney studio; Brooks Wilson Ltd (1967), on which the 1970 film Loving was based; and Mother's Day (1969) about Ma Barker. Under his own name, he novelized director-writer Bo Widerberg's screenplay for the 1971 film Joe Hill, which would be his final published book. Early life John Richard McDermott was born 30 August 1919 in Pueblo, Colorado, the younger of two sons of Henry McDermott, an oil broker. McDermott was a young child when his father committed suicide.[4] The family eventually moved to Los Angeles where McDermott's mother, Hazel, worked in a beauty parlor. He graduated from Hollywood High School in 1936. Although he had had no formal art education, he took a job as an artist at Walt Disney Animation Studios. Career Disney At Disney, McDermott worked as an in-betweener and effects animator on Brave Little Tailor, Pinocchio, The Reluctant Dragon and Fantasia. His experiences while working at Disney, particularly during the time of the 1941 Disney animators' strike, would later become the basis for his 1969 satirical novel The Rat Factory. McDermott left Disney to fight with US forces during World War II. US Marines McDermott World War II sketch titled "Buddy is Wounded" On September 29, 1942, McDermott enlisted with the US Marine Corps. He served as a "pistol and palette" combat artist assigned to the map-making section. As a sergeant with the III Amphibious Corps, McDermott was involved in battles in the South Pacific theater of war, documenting the Guam, Okinawa and the Guadalcanal Campaigns. McDermott considered his wartime years to be his art education. "In the Marines, as a combat artist, I traveled with the troops and for three years got all the drawing opportunity anyone could want. My work changed enormously during this time and I’m sure it was due to constant drawing, every single day, from life, just putting down what I saw around me. In a few instances it was a dangerous kind of scholarship." According to the Marine Corps history journal Fortitudine, McDermott was so prolific that his contemporary style pen-and-ink sketches became easily recognizable to both Marines, from published work in Leatherneck Magazine, and civilians, from glossy copies supplied by the Marine Corps to the nation's press.His wartime art appears in World War II history books and is displayed at the Pentagon and the National Museum of the Marine Corps. Illustration Following the end of World War II, McDermott moved from California to New York City to work as a freelance illustrator. McDermott made his reputation drawing modern action, war and adventure scenes. His work adorned the covers and inside story pages of popular pulp magazines of the 1950s such as Argosy, Adventure, Blue Book, Outdoor Life and American Weekly. McDermott's illustrations appeared on numerous covers of 1950s paperback novels published by Dell, Fawcett Gold Medal, Bantam Mystery and others. His action graphics were geared toward thriller and detective genres, such as Donald Hamilton's Matt Helm books Murderers' Row and The Betrayers. He also created covers for science fiction comic titles such as Voyage to the Deep[citation needed] and horror-themed paperbacks such as the classic 1955 science fiction novel The Body Snatchers...

Enter the Wood Chipper. Before the Bowery was a trendy destination, it was America's most famous Skid Row. Vagrant flophouses, 10-dollar prostitutes, dive bars, and what used to be ...

It's 1964, and the brilliantly inventive artist/illustrator Bob Peak is turning the world of commercial art upside down. In "Pregame Football Players" for Sports Illustrated, Peak pu...

Study of a sultry and seductive reclining platinum blond Pin Up with a wide-brimmed sun hat. Most likely done for Playboy. This work is very finely rendered and looks better the ...

Wilson Bigaud is an idea artist in who showcases visual ideas in many of his paintings. In this work, a married Haitian couple tunes their radios in sync as they lie in bed. Bigaud was greatly interested in radios, which appeared in many of his works. This work rises to the level of Surrealism in that Bigaud is doing more than just depicting a normal bedroom moment. There is something very strange and bizarre in the couple's synchronized actions. Also of note, it looks like the woman is swallowing the edge of the radio. Signed lower right in a handmade and hand-painted frame. Wear to the edges of board, including delamination in the corners, some dents and losses. Frame rubbing with associated wear. Areas of white discoloration to the bed and headboard...

Two elegant and leggy models are rendered and meticulously designed in this illustration for Geoffrey Beene. Miyake's composition is one model as two or two models as one. We see th...

Lorraine Fox was an American illustrator and commercial artist who illustrated magazines, book covers, and advertisements. Among the magazines, she illustrated for were Woman's Day, ...

Lorraine Fox (1922–1976) was an American illustrator and commercial artist who illustrated magazines, book covers, and advertisements. Among the magazines, she illustrated for was Wo...

A large charcoal-on-paper rendering by arguably one of America's most influential artists. It comes from the pioneering Allan Stone Galleries, who ...

African American Artist Alvin Hollingsworth creates a mixed-media abstract painting/collage that abounds with inventiveness and creativity. Large s...

Brilliant American Illustrator Bob Peak captures the fury and power of a punch to the face with rapid broad strokes of the brush. Combined with a somber color scheme and gestural bru...

Philip Reisman paints the raw street life of New York City. Whether he's painting a barmaid or a street hobo, Reisman is a people painter. He studied at the Art Students League with ...

This brilliantly rendered female portrait by a major American post-war illustrator known for his stunningly glamorous women. Notice how all the elements of the composition work tog...

Surrealist ad where a gloved human hand rises in pictorial height to the size of a chemical plant. Tension is created as Drafsman's Pencil is about to t...

Street Photographer Mitchell Funk breaks with tradition and shoots street photography in color. Today in 2022 this does not seem like a big deal. But 53 years ago in 1969 it was quit...

Street Photographer Mitchell Funk breaks with tradition and shoots street photography in color. Today in 2022, this does not seem like a big deal. But 52 years ago in 1969, it was qu...

There are a lot of people in the art world today who dismiss illustrators are being commercial solely because the artists identified as being commercial artists and that the work was done on assignment. Sadly these art world people have limited imagination and a restricted sense of curiosity. This boxing illustration/painting was done for Sports Illustrated...

Gahan Wilson was the Master of the macabre, and most of his work is associated with Charles Addams. The beauty of a Gahan Wilson is that is a payoff pu...

Even at the age of 19, street photographer Mitchell Funk forged a unique style of street color photography. It was based on formal and exacting compositions with an emphasis on stron...

For generations, The Bowery was known for homeless, abandoned alcoholics. This insightful and soulful portrait from 1969 shows one of the Bowery's street residents against a green w...

This sexy joke cartoon with thought balloons and some bathroom humor was done by the brilliant humorist cartoonist for Mad Magazine, Al Jaffee. The joke's...

Illustration legend Bob Peak depicts a boxer that has fallen to the matt and is being given the 10-count by the referee. Peak captures that peak moment of drama and then exaggerates...

Alice RoseProvensen and Martin Provensen were an American couple who illustrated more than 40 children's books together, 19 of which they also wrote and edited According to Alice, "we were a true collaboration. Martin and I really were one artist. The Provensens were a runner-up for the 1982 Caldecott Medal as illustrators of A Visit to William Blake's Inn by Nancy Willard (who won the companion Newbery Medal). Two years later they won the Caldecott for The Glorious Flight, the story of aviator Louis...

Alice and Martin Provensen were an American couple who illustrated more than 40 children's books together. In 1984, the won the Caldecott for The Glorious Flight, the story of aviator Louis Blériot...

A milk truck is seen caressed in the golden light of early morning as a woman bends down to feed her cat. The artist depicts a precious moment as an older woman reaching down to pick...

This graphic composition depicts Lord Cardigan on horseback commanding an equestrian military unit with the Union Jack flag proudly displayed. The famous battle scene "Charge of the Light Brigade...

This Drawing has a sketch on the reverse as well as handwritten notes, one of which reads "On loan from the Freddy Wittop's private collection." Costume designer Freddy Wittop won a Tony Award for his work on "Hello, Dolly!" and was also the recipient of a TDF Irene Sharaff...

Football players cloaked in oversized Browns jackets are seen from behind running off the field. Always the graphic innovator, legendary illustrator Bob Peak creates a radical composition by leaving the bottom two-thirds of the picture plane empty of detail. To convey a sense of motion, Peak uses broad strokes of paint similar to the action painters Franz Kline and Willem de Kooning, who were the dominant force in the fine art world in the 1960s. Clearly, one can see a cross-over influence from Fine Art to commercial illustration as Peak strikes a balance between abstract versus figurative art. This work was done on an assignment for Sports Illustrated...

This is an early example of photo manipulation. Photographer put a match to the 35mm emulsion to the burned bubble effect and then sandwiched it with colored gels in a double exposur...

The artist tells a whole action-packed story in one picture. A handsome young soldier shoots his pistol at a passing bomb-dropping airplane. The close call splashes water on him and his two sexy girl...

Bernie Fuchs's painting "Fauve Portrait of Two Women in Blue with Red Abanicos" captures a festive scene of three Spanish women in traditional dress at...

Bob Peak may be America's greatest post-war illustrator. In this earlier work from 1965, the artist paints a street scene of workers in the style of Les Nabis...

This highly innovated Bob Peak Race Track painting is a perfect synthesis of art and commerce. Designed with a radical composition where two-thirds of the picture plane is an alm...

This strobe-like dynamic composition with bright and bold colors reflects the energetic taste of the 7 Up brand. It lies somewhere between abstraction and figuration. Peaks' use of b...

Summertime in Martha's Vineyard is drenched in saturated yellows and reds. People in the foreground look out to the sea. Two people on horseback are masterfully rendered in a loose ...