1940s Wall Decorations

Original vintage winter sport and skiing travel poster - Alpes & Jura Eight days of winter sports A whole year of health / Huit jours de sports d'hiver Toute une annee de sante - fea...

Original vintage World War Two period poster advertising The Saturday Evening Post magazine issued on 31 January 1942 featuring a cover art design by Jo...

Original vintage winter sports poster for the Swiss alpine resort of Kandersteg Schweiz Suisse Switzerland located in the Bernese Oberlan...

Original vintage winter sport travel poster for the Kandahar Ski School in Murren Kandahar with the slogan - Its sun terrace is waiting for you / Seine Sonnenterrasse wartet auf Sie - featuring an image of a smiling lady holding up her ski poles in greeting to the viewer from a snow topped balcony with a Swiss flag on the side and the coat of arms emblem on the front, the stylised lettering above and curved below on the blue background. Design and print by Brugger A.G. Meiringen. Artwork by the Swiss painter and printer Arnold Brugger (1888-1975) Atelier Brugger. The Swiss resort village of Murren is located in the Bernese Oberland mountain region; the Kandahar Ski Club was formed in 1924 by British alpine...

One of the most intriguing and mysterious WPA-era prints we have ever offered, this rare, possibly unique work depicts a group of two women and two men in intense conversation at a crude wood table, in a simple room with cracks in the plaster that show the wood lath underneath. The four almost seem like a group on the lam in a film noir from the period, desperately running from a crime of some kind. Two of the four face downward, deeply focused on the subject at hand, and another is lost in thought, a pipe in his mouth. The fourth is most mysterious of all, facing away from the viewer. but clearly animated and in conversation. The artist was Alice Harold Murphy...

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...

Pair vintage floral still life framed prints. Soft impressionistic style in muted tones. Light wear from age.

Henry Rox original vintage silver print of his imaginative creation of food of an art professor and his dachshund attached to a non-representational non-easel abstract Expressionist ...

Original vintage travel advertising poster - Let British Railways Handle Your Party Outing - featuring a great graphic design of colourful hands holding a cut out paper chain of peop...

This extraordinary set of 61 prints on 34 separate sheets of rag paper by Maurice L'Hoir were made in connection with the 1945 publication of Lysistrata, the Classic Greek poem that offers a licentious take on the war between the sexes. Each of the prints is a woodcut that was inked by hand in a brilliant palette of deep red, mossy green, deep black and warm fleshy tones by the artist Each of these images were created for the book, only 33 copies of which were made. However, this set is independent of the book and therefore each print is unbound and easy to frame. The Greek poem famously describes the determination of Greek women to refuse all sex with men until they agreed to stop fighting. L'Hoir was famed for his book illustrations during the Art Deco period; he also designed a poster for Moulin Rouge in the 1920s. (The Lysistrata book is also available, separate from this set of prints.).

French sanguine Art work representing a detail of a Parisian Park.

A cross between Grant Wood and Paul Cadmus, this remarkable American regional scene painting depicts a young man in a white t-shirt walking a group of cows down a country lane with p...

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...

Original vintage American World War Two poster - Free Labor Will Win - published by the U.S. Government and the War Production Board as a reminder that the Fascist enemies were using...

Original vintage ski travel poster for Winter Sports in Carinthia Austria featuring artwork by Hubert Lechner (1903-1990) of a smiling skier wearing a hat and holding a ski pole, loo...

Brilliantly transposed from Biblical times to 1940s America, this vivid scene shows Samson and Delilah in a quintessentially domestic setting, complete with pink wallpaper...

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 vintage World War Two recruitment propaganda poster for the Second Australian Imperial Force (2nd AIF; 1939-1947) voluntary military forces - How proud they'll be to pass ar...

Original vintage Soviet propaganda poster issued just a month before the attack of Germany on the Soviet Union in the World War Two - I'm Proud Of My Son! / Горжусь Сыном! The image ...

Very captivating set of two early 20th C still life paintings by Alexandre 'Alex' Denonne (Belgium, 1879-1953): still life "Asparagus and eggs" and still life "Melon". Oil on canvas...

Original vintage World War Two political propaganda poster issued by the Communist Party of Great Britain - Strike now in the West and finish th...

Original vintage poster advertising the Eighth Local Artefacts Exhibition in Otsu City (Shiga Prefecture Japan) featuring a leafy green tree in front of a traditional old style Japan...

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...

Original vintage travel poster promoting Fukuura beach in Japan featuring great scenic artwork depicting people enjoying sunbathing on a large sandy beach and swimming in the bay wit...

Original vintage World War Two military health poster - A bad tooth is slow poison Visit your Dental Officer regularly - featuring a great design by the notable British graphic designer Abram Games (Abraham Gamse; 1914-1996) depicting a black and white image of teeth with a blue glass poison bottle...

Original vintage World War Two poster - Food is a weapon Don't waste it! Buy wisely Cook Carefully Eat it all Follow the National Wartime Nutrition Program - featuring a great design...

This pair of brackets done in the baroque style are Italian made circa 1940 the pair is crafted from wood and molded gesso with thick old mirror backs that have spotting and crazing ...

Original vintage poster published by the General Post Office GPO - 8,000,000 telephone calls a day - featuring a great graphic design by the notable British artist Pat Keely (Patrick Cokayne Keely; 1901-1970) depicting the large numbers in deep red across the image with telephone handsets...

Suffused with the soft, rich colors that Jacques Azéma was known for, this view of a Moroccan landscape ("Les Champs" in French) includes a seated male y...

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...

Original vintage World War Two propaganda poster entitled R.A.F day raiders over Berlin's official quarter The Downfall of the Dictators is Assured featuring dynamic artwork of British de Havilland Mosquito planes dropping bombs over Berlin in Germany with the Royal Air Force RAF roundel visible on the aircraft and Nazi flags...

Original vintage World War Two propaganda poster - Loose Talk Can Cost Lives Don't Be a Dope and Spread Inside Dope - featuring great artwork by the American commercial illustrator a...

Original vintage drink advertising poster for Fino Quinta Osborne Puerto de Santa Maria Espana featuring a great design depicting a bull above a bottle of wine next to glass on an ou...

Original vintage World War Two poster - The Clouds Have Eyes - featuring a German Nazi pilot on a reconnaissance spy mission kneeling next to his plane on ...

Edvin Ollers – Oil on Panel, “Garden Motif,” Signed and Dated 1943 A beautiful and atmospheric oil on panel painting by renowned Swedish artist and designer Edvin Ollers (1888–1959)...

Joseph Misraki Egypt, born in 1895 “Reclining Nude” Oil on canvas 30 by 40 in. W/frame 39 by 49 in. He was a member of the salon d’Autom...

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 World War Two safety propaganda poster - Sun Blisters Damp Rusts Ammunition Keep It Covered - featuring a dynamic design by the notable British poster artist Frank N...

1940s oil on canvas of 2 workers sawing. Signed.

Snowy Creek, creek with snow and trees - signed lower right - Unframed.

Hans Ekegardh (b. 1881, d.1962), Swedish artist. Oil on canvas. Seated nude model, landscape in the background. 1940s. In very good condition. Signed. ...

Original vintage Italian World War Two poster - Buoni del Tesoro Aprono iv varco a la vittoria / Treasury Bills open the way to victory - featuring a dynamic Greek Goddess design...

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...

Dated 1945, just before the end of World War II, this important and powerful painting by John De Forest Stull shows an embracing mother and father stand...

Original vintage World War Two poster - Abri Defense Passive Explosifs / Explosives Passive Defence Shelter - featuring a dynamic design ...

This is a rare original Russian propaganda poster called The Road of Life by Muratov, N. 1944 print.

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 winter sport poster for the Dartmouth Winter Week End Ski Jumping 8-10 February 1946. Great design featuring a black and white photo of a ski...

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...

Friedrich Karl GOTSCH (1900-1984), very well-known and renowned german painter of the golden era of expressionism, impressionism and „Neue Sachlichkeit“. Friend of many world-famous artists of the time. His extraordinary works can be found in many exhibitions and collections around the world. - Oil / Gouache on cardboard from 1945. New professional framed. Monogrammed „F...

Colette Gueden (1905-2000). "Leaves and fruits." Extremely rare signed watercolor on paper. Collette Gueden was a very famous and popular French artist and designer in the 1950s....

Wiedemann's Fine beer - The Leader Trade sign with three Canada geese on oval walnut plaque. German immigrant George Wiedemann began brewing at the original Wiedemann brewery in Ne...

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...

Designed and executed by Ernest d'Hossche, one of Belgium's leading Art Deco artisans in the 1930s and 40s, this very rare wall plate features a nude female figure holding an upright...

Postwar Hawaiian airbrush tropical hibiscus floral on paper in original period white wood frame. Signed by artist Hammis Measures: Art 26" x 36" ...

Painting of crest on paper dated 1947.

Original vintage London Transport poster for London: The Proud City - A new view of the Tower of London across Water Lane by the artist Walter E. Spradbery ...

A carborundum etching by Max Papart (France, 1911-1994) Untitled Signed and numbered 92/99.

Original vintage anti-British World War Two propaganda poster issued in Fascist Italy - I principi di vita e di Stato Dell'Inghilterra. Sete di dominio. ...

Original vintage World War Two poster - Your Britain Fight For It Now - featuring a great design by the notable British graphic designer Abram Games (Abraham Gamse; 1914-1996) depict...