1940s Wall Decorations

Original vintage railway travel poster advertising Weymouth and District Frequent Express Trains and Cheap Fares GWR Great Western Railway SR Southern Railway featuring a pictorial map of Weymouth and Melcombe Regis with significant locations and historical events marked on the map including illustrations in Weymouth Bay of sailing boats near the shore, navy battle ships, fishing boats and an angling description, the Shambles light ship, and the captions Weymouth ships captured two galleons from the Spanish Armada / Weymouth furnished 20 ships and 265 mariners for the Siege of Calais in 1345, as well as places of interest and sporting activities on land such as Roman remains and villa, the grave of Lawrence of Arabia, golf, people on horses, steam trains on routes marked in red through the hills, rivers, trees and towns, sub-tropical gardens, bird sanctuary, churches, the Race at Portland Bill...

Original US lobby card for the 1945 Thriller was directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and stars Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck, Michael Chekhov and Leo G. Carroll. Dr. Edwardes (played by Gr...

Original vintage World War Two poster - A British Short Sunderland Flying Boat patrolling the sea lanes - featuring an illustration of an RAF Royal Air Force bomber plane flying abov...

Original vintage advertising poster for Swiss Telecom - Telephonez! - featuring an adorable illustration by Donald Brun (1909-1999) depicting a young girl ...

1940s Pastel Painting On Paper Of Asian Woman Signed Dorothy Dwin Illustration Wood Frame and glass Colors: pink, blue, white

1940s Watercolor Painting On Paper Of Asian Woman Wearing Hat Wearing a Nón Lá (traditional Vietnamese hat) Signed Dorothy Dwin Illustration

Original vintage Soviet propaganda poster - Move to the Far East With Us / ??????????? ? ??? ?? ??????? ??????! - featuring a lady behind wheat and a man framed by a tree welcoming a...

Beautiful rare poster urging people to go to Germany and be the ambassador of French quality or "Qualite Francaise". Featuring stunning artwork attributed to Eric Castel depicting a...

Original vintage World War Two home front poster issued to encourage people to buy war savings bonds and help win the war. Dramatic artwork by the notable British artist and illustra...

Original vintage World War Two recruitment propaganda poster for the Second Australian Imperial Force (2nd AIF; 1939-1947) voluntary military forces - Make her proud to say 'My Son overseas' Join the AIF - featuring a photograph of a smiling soldier in uniform in a picture frame with a ball of wool and knitting needles...

Candido PORTINARI (1903-1962), Original Drypoint 1940's - Three Mulatto Women Signed and dedicated to Francis Brennan (1910-1992). Numbered 15/18. Illustrated in the Catalogue rais...

Original vintage World War Two poster - Black market is a robbery Do not order your compatriots Equal distribution for all / Zwarte markt is roof! Besteelt niet uw landgenooten gelijke verdeeling voor allen! Dynamic design by the notable British artist Pat Keely (Patrick Cokayne Keely; 1901-1970) depicting a rat eating grain from a hole in a sack being watched by eyes in the dark, a Nazi Germany swastika flag, the flag of the National Socialist...

Original Framed "Peacock Vendor" Serigraph by Millard Owen Sheets, Limited Edition of 350. This original print features a Roman women selling Peakocks on a Roman street in it's origi...

Original vintage GPO General Post Office advertising poster - Send a cable It's easy - featuring a great design by the notable artist Tom Eckersley (1914-1997) depicting an outline o...

Original vintage sport poster - Le Tour De France 1949 Nancy Ville Etape Tourisme Art et Histoire / City stage Tourism Art and History - featuring artwork by Alfred Selig (1907-1974)...

Original vintage advertising poster for the GPO General Post Office - Cable Greetings Anywhere in the Commonwealth 5'- for Eleven Words (including GLT prefix and the address) from th...

Original vintage travel poster advertising British Commonwealth Pacific Airlines flights to England - Via BCPA to England. Design features an illustration of a mounted Royal Guard on...

Original vintage World War Two propaganda poster - Junk Rains Hell on Axis - featuring a great design by the notable American-Russian illustrator and graphic designer Boris Artzybasheff...

Beautiful pair of Italian majolica ship wall plates. Great vibrant colors.

Signed French framed painting resting nude woman from the 1940. Traditionally those paintings were hung above the bed in a master bedroom in France. ...

Original vintage Art Deco poster advertising British radio telecommunication services - Speed your message via Imperial Eastern Empiradio or Marconi - featuring a stunning geometric ...

A brilliant example of American Cubism, this vividly-hued still life depicts an autumnal array of fruit, green and red grapes, lemons, figs and persimm...

Original vintage Soviet sport poster promoting football as a national sport featuring a football match with players from each team running to kick the ball during a match in front of...

A striking and richly-hued example of American Scene painting, this depiction of a yellow calla lily framed by undulating hills in tones of purple and red was painted by Richard Taflinger. The artist's celebration of his native Oklahoma landscape...

Original vintage World War Two poster - tout va tres bien. Madame la Marquise - featuring a caricature of Winston Churchill in torn clothing with crossed band aid...

Original vintage advertising poster for Nachte Neben der Tur neuer Roman in der Kollnischen Illustrierten / Nights by the Door new novel by Justus Franz Wittkop in the Koln illustrated featuring a great graphic design depicting a pair of black shoes outside a row of numbered hotel doors...

Original vintage World War Two military safety poster - His rifle will fire Will mine? Care of arms is care of life - featuring a dynamic design...

Original vintage poster for the Austrian Alpine Club / Osterreichischer Alpenverein featuring a skier carrying skis over his shoulder with snowy mountain peaks behind him, the stylis...

Billy Seay airbrushed parrot lovers (original airbrushed over a print) for the Turner Company, circa 1948, in the original white painted frame. A great exam...

Original vintage sports poster for the 1940 Summer Olympic Games in Helsinki Finland featuring a dynamic image depicting the sculpture ...

Clearly created by a master, this pencil drawing of a nude male figure is signed and dated 1947. The diffused lines and areas of rubbed pencil and erasure give this drawing a comple...

Original vintage movie poster for a musical comedy film La P'tite Femme du Moulin-Rouge featuring a great illustration by Vicente Cristellys (1898-1...

Original vintage World War Two poster featuring an illustration of an RAF Royal Air Force plane flying at speed above a Royal Navy warship in camouflage flying a White Ensign flag, t...

Original vintage British propaganda poster - Are you with us in National Service? Colourful image showing smiling men and women in uniform looking up to the viewer with their arms li...

Original vintage World War Two poster featuring an illustration of a military tank driving at speed over a hill with a Union Jack flag of the United Kingdom flying against the blue s...

Original vintage travel poster - USA The Orient Europe by DC-6 sleeper PAL Philippine Airlines Speed Comfort Dependability - featuring a great desi...

Vintage Nantucket Watercolor of Old North Wharf, by Doris and Richard Beer, circa 1940, a watercolor on paper view of shell lane down center of ol...

Rare and winning, this lovely Art Deco porcelain rondel, glazed in black, gold and red on a white ground, was designed and executed by Waylande Gregory, the great American sculptor a...

Original vintage World War Two home front poster - Fish is a fighting food We need more - featuring an image of a catch of fish being hauled in a bucket by fishermen working on a woo...

Original vintage Soviet World War Two propaganda poster - Comrade! Remember that a well-prepared and warmly dressed fighter will strike the enemy even str...

A very interesting and unusual Lancaster Bridge Original Oil Painting by artist J. Earle Pfoutz. The painting is produced on artist board and comes complete with what appears to be an original artist decorated/painted frame. The painting is signed on the front by the artist. Overall frame Size approximately 42″ wide x 2″ deep x 30″ high J. Earle Pfoutz had a long and distinguished career as a self trained artist. More can be learned about him from reading this article produced by Gary Hawbaker at askART Earle Pfoutz Born: 1891 – Lancaster, Pennsylvania Died: 1957 Known for: Landscape, figure, still life painting An image of J Earle Pfoutz Biography from the Archives of askART J. Earle Pfoutz (John Earle Pfoutz) – (Oct 23, 1891-Nov 9, 1957) “A seventh generation descendant of a Swiss family which arrived in America early in the 17th Century, J. Earle Pfoutz was born in Lancaster, PA, son of John Bachman and Susan Allison Pfoutz. He painted houses for a living and pictures for a life. A self-taught artist, described as a primitive, he was distinctive for his vivid imagination and bold color application. He painted hundreds of Lancaster County scenes. Pfoutz traveled through the hills near his home and along the Susquehanna River in search of scenes. He began painting with a brush when he was fourteen, but added a palette knife after suffering an eye injury. He completed eighth grade in the Lancaster Public Schools and there his formal education ended. However, the Department of Public Instruction of the State of Pennsylvania thought so highly of his work as an artist that officials certified him as an art instructor and he taught for a year in the York (PA) public schools. He also was an art instructor under the program for disabled veterans, sponsored by the Veterans Administration, when he gave private instruction to veterans in their homes. In 1947, J. Earle Pfoutz finally earned national recognition as an artist. His painting, Opalescent October, was chosen by the Museum of Art of Dayton Ohio, to travel all over the country for a year with its Group Exhibition. Described as a “very colorful, calm scene, iridescent in color, sweeping in design,” the painting started on its journey around the country early in 1948. In an interview with the Sunday News (Lancaster, PA – Nov 2, 1947), Pfoutz stated that he didn’t know whether he was a “primitive” or an “impressionist.” No master taught him, no school channeled his style. “Sometimes I didn’t eat, but I always managed to paint,” he recalled. Many of his hundreds of canvases -most of them not sold, but given away to friends – found their way to other parts of the country. “I never remember the day when I did not love color,” Pfoutz said. “I was about 12 years old when I saw my first palette – a string of different colored paint paddles that graced the stores of that day. As a boy I had two great desires. One was to be able to eat all the strawberry jam I could, and the other to possess a string of those beautiful paint paddles. Well, I’ve got my fill of jelly, but I’ve never yet got my fill of beautiful colors.” In 1950, Pfoutz’s one man show of paintings made front page headlines in the Lancaster Intelligencer Journal: “Most of the twenty oil paintings on exhibition are landscapes, although there are several interesting figure studies. Colors again, as in all Pfoutziana are rich and full-bodied, but for the most part not as startlingly as in some of the earlier work. Most of the paintings were done during the past year, and also reveal the painter’s characteristic heavy impasto technique, in which the rich swirls of paint carry their own message. Among the figures, The Banjo Picker, and The Magician, are the most provocative. Both are character studies; the first being of a tramp musician whose drab clothing is set-off by a luminous aqua blue background. Modern in feeling and treatment is The Magician, a clown-faced wizard whose spinning ball in the air suggests the fourth dimension – space. The use of the primary colors in this picture serves to emphasize the theme effectively. A large colorful landscape, Opalescent October, depicting rolling hills against a late afternoon sky is new to Lancastrians, as it has just returned from Dayton, Ohio, where it hung in the Dayton Art Institute. Another landscape with soft dreamy colors is Fantasie D’Autumne, and one of the loveliest pictures in the show. Pennsylvania Dutch Country is another with eye appeal, and was one of the works which was hung in the Old Customs House in Philadelphia during Pennsylvania Week, and before that in a collection of Pfoutz work in the same place. In deep contrast to the sunny skies and brilliant foliage of many of the pictures, is the somewhat morbid Worry, in which the center of interest is a tremendous rat. This, the painter explains, was symbolic of 1948 in China, which was ‘The Year of The Rat’ in the Chinese calendar. Background material for the picture was furnished to Pfoutz by author Pearl Buck. Other pictures include Autumn Prelude, Miners Village, painted at Cornwall, PA; Humid Day, Saint Peters Kierch, at Middletown, PA; Lady Pfoutz, inspired by the painter’s wife; Sun Flowers, Sentimental Journey, Gyne, Luzon Woman, Old Bridge, The Cow Path. Lemures, based on Roman mythology, and Ethiopian, painted from an ebony wood carving from Kenya Province, S. Africa.” In 1953, Pfoutz was installed as President of the Lancaster County Art Association. A. Z. Kruse, New York City artist, writer and member of the faculty of the Brooklyn College and the Cartoonists and Illustrators School, Manhattan, was the guest speaker. In January of 1953, thirty-five Pfoutz oils were exhibited at the Old Custom House in Philadelphia, PA under the sponsorship of the Carl Schurz Memorial Foundation. Several Lancaster County landscapes and covered bridges were included as well as Katy, a Pennsylvania Dutch scene. Symbolic paintings included End of the Second Day, the artist’s visualization of the second coming of Christ, and Twilight, typifying the grief of mothers of all lands for sons lost in battle. In June of 1953, a Pfoutz oil made history in Lancaster. From the Lancaster New Era: “For the first in local art history, a painting has been withdrawn from an exhibition because of objections from viewers and hostesses serving at the show. The painting, Jeune Fille, a standing nude done by Pfoutz, was one of the paintings in the annual spring exhibition of the Art Association and had become the center of the controversy. Pfoutz said he took the painting down… ‘graciously but reluctantly.’ ‘From an artistic standpoint, there is nothing offensive about the painting,’ Pfoutz said. ‘This community just wants its nudes with clothes on.’ “It is most brilliant in color, and because it is so brilliant I thought it would make a nice lively spot for the show. This is the first time I’ve had to take a picture off the walls. I substituted a seascape for it.’ Pfoutz said he felt the painting brought a lot of viewers to the show because it was so controversial. It had never been exhibited before. ‘If this had been shown in a metropolitan city,’ he commented, ‘people wouldn’t have given it a second glance. But the viewpoint here is more conservative, even though I don’t think moderns would have minded.’ He said he felt the painting was neither ‘objectionable nor pornographic,’ but had complied with the wishes of fellow members of the Art Association who telephoned him to relay the protests they had received. The art controversy was the first to arise here publicly since the showing of Amish Grandmother, an oil by William Gropper which was part of the Gimbel Pennsylvania exhibit at the Griest Building several years ago. — Numerous viewers of Amish Grandmother, [a painting showing an Amish woman holding a white goose], expressed themselves quite vocally, calling it an affront to the Plain Folk. But it stayed on exhibit throughout the length of the Gimbel show. Pfoutz expressed no rancor, implying that if Gropper could take it so could he.” After his death, there were several shows of Pfoutz’ work organized by his son J. Earle, Jr. J. Earle, Jr. also saw to it that President Eisenhower would receive an oil called The Cow’s Path. The president first saw the painting in 1950 when, as president of Columbia University, he visited Lancaster to address a student assembly at Franklin and Marshall College. After his address was over, the then Gen. Eisenhower stopped at the Fackenthal Library on the campus to view an exhibition of Pfoutz’s paintings. The Cow’s Path intrigued him. For some time, as his aides fumed to get him back on his time schedule, Eisenhower and Pfoutz talked, as artist to artist. Prior to his death, Pfoutz requested that The Cow’s Path be given to the President if he wanted it. The painting was presented to Ike at the White House in November of 1959. Mrs. Eisenhower owned a Pfoutz painting titled, In the Manor. Though house painting was his livelihood, he worked for Millersville State Teachers College (now a university) for a time during World War II, and called himself “the Chimney Sweep of MSTC.” During that period he knocked out a dizzying canvas in the surrealist style (he thought it was terrible) and got into the campus newspaper when one of the students spotted it. Earle Pfoutz was not the humble, downtrodden artist, not the Douanier Rousseau type at all. As he developed his skill and style through the years, he also fashioned a resilient confidence in himself as an artist. Whether he was building his own home (he built two) or painting one for somebody else, he never lost faith in his ultimate recognition—though he was never sure he would live to see it. Whether he was working as a rigger for a hoisting company, in the Stehli Silk Mill of Lancaster, carving Cloister-style chairs, decorating old chests, cementing bricks from the old Safe...

Original vintage World War Two poster - Keep a Guard on What You Say… Fantastic design by the notable British graphic designer Abram Games (Abraham Gamse; 1914-1996) depicting the face of a soldier wearing a military army cap with a silhouette in white of a soldier holding a rifle gun and standing guard in front of his open mouth as a sentry box...

Sculpted by Walter Sinz, one of Cleveland's most celebrated sculptors in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, this rare bronze panel recognized leading manufacturers in the aerospace industry, in this case an aircraft electronics company in Philadelphia. Like a rocket exploding out of its launching pad, this panel depicts a nude female figure shooting into the sky, in classic Art Deco stylized form. Sinz designed the Thompson Trophy, awarded by one of the prominent air races...

Step into the rustic charm of a bygone era with this captivating 1940s Expressionist French oil painting. Skillfully depicting a vibrant farmer's market scene, the canvas comes alive...

Original Swedish film poster for the 1942 Film Noir The Glass Key. This film starred Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake and Brian Donlevy and was directed by Stuart Heisler. This film was not ...

Original vintage World War Two propaganda poster in Portuguese - A Gra Bretanha Defensora de Liberdade Os avioes pesados de bombardeamento da R.A.F. voam muitas vezes uma distancia t...

Original vintage World War Two safety poster - When handling arms Look first Prevent accidents Is there anything 'up the spout'? Is that magazine really empty? Great modernist design...

This portrait in pastel represents the confluence of two important artists: C. Katherine Nelson, painter and designer, and her onetime student, Glidden Parker, who became one of Ame...

Ingvar Engdahl, Swedish artist. Oil on board. Interior with two people in modernist style. In very good condition. Would benefit from a clean. Signed and dated '48. Dimensions: 67.0 ...

Beautiful vintage wall art piece. A drawing of a boy waking up from his bed. The art piece is signed. Drawn on paper, framed under the glass with a black wooden frame. Some minor age...

Original vintage World War Two military recruitment propaganda poster - Join The Regular Air Force - featuring a great design by the notable artist Tom Eckersley (1914-1997) of a you...

Original Post-War Hawaiian Airbrush zebra in original period white painted wood frame with large mat border, Pair. Art: 21" X 26" Frame: 25.25" X 28.25"

The painting "Forest landscape" ref. August Jacobsen, oil on canvas. dimensions 47cm x 61cm

Original vintage movie poster for a 1942 World War Two drama film - Secret Mission an exciting adventure / Service Secret une aventure passionnante - about British spies and a French resistance fighter gathering information about the Nazi German forces, directed by Harold French and starring Hugh Williams, James Mason...

Beautiful and elegant wall art sculpture in brass. Produced probably in Czechoslovakia circa 1940s. The art work portraits a nude woman. Unknown autho...

Original vintage British World War Two poster - Careless talk may cost his life Don't talk about aerodromes or aircraft factories - featuring a black and white photo of a smiling Royal Air Force RAF pilot...

Original early backglass for a vintage pinball machine. These were the art pieces found in the back of the pinball ball machines that would l...

Original vintage skiing sport poster for the Dartmouth Winter Carnival held on 6-7 February 1942 featuring a design by Dom Lupo depicting the bold title text...