Attempted Bloggery: Gil Elvgren

Showing posts with label Gil Elvgren. Show all posts

Friday, April 10, 2026

Heritage Auctions Signature Illustration Art Sale New York Preview, April 2026

Select pieces were on view at the midtown Manhattan reception Wednesday evening for the Heritage Auctions Signature Illustration Art Sale to be held on April 21 in Dallas. Naturally, I couldn't resist photographing some of these highlights, starting with the bold illustration by Patrick Nagel that appears on the catalogue cover.

Untitled [Tracy Vaccaro in Polka Dot Dress], 1983

Patrick Nagel

Untitled [Close Up—Heidi Sorenson], 1983

Patrick Nagel

And Forsaking All Others
Edward Sorel
The New Yorker, June 15, 1998

Constantin Alajálov
The Saturday Evening Post, April 13, 1946

Garth Williams

James Gurney

To bring out the colors, I enhanced this 1917 advertising illustration image for Kellogg's Corn Flakes by J. C. Leyendecker:

J. C. Leyendecker

Edmund F. Ward

Mead Schaeffer

Gil Elvgren

Dean Cornwell

Thomas Blackshear II

Frank R. Paul

05240

Saturday, November 1, 2025

Heritage Auctions Signature Illustration Art Sale New York Preview

On Wednesday evening, Heritage Auctions held a reception at its Park Avenue gallery space. The Dallas-based auction house offered its New York audience a preview featuring highlights of the Signature Illustration Art sale coming up on November 4. (There was some other work here, as well.) The pieces looked wonderful in person. Come, have a look at some of them.

Frank Frazetta

Eugene Iverd

Charles Addams

Edward Sorel

E. H. Shepard

Chesley Bonestell

Gil Elvgren

Olivia De Berardinis

George Petty

Charles Dana Gibson

Harrison Fisher

F. X. Leyendecker

J. C. Leyendecker

Harvey Dunn

Dean Cornwell

Gerald Brom

The Brothers Hildebrandt

Thomas Taylor

Neal Adams

Comic Art Signature Auction

Attributed to Haddon Sundblom

Patrick Nagel

The Brothers Hildebrandt (far left), Charles Dana Gibson, N. C. Wyeth, and E. H. Shepard

Note: We're in luck! The entire Heritage Auctions Signature Illustration Art sale coming November 4 may be viewed here.

05108

Thursday, February 21, 2013

Another Reason to Go to Medical School

Pin-up art isn't really my thing. Neither is medical humor, at least that's what I keep telling everyone here. But put the two together, and I find myself unexpectedly delighted.

Gil Elvgren's "Doctor, Are All Those Fellow Interns?" from 1946 was published in the 1952 Brown & Bigelow wall calendar. It is an unashamedly adolescent view of medical practice, including a disrobed young woman not-too-effectively covering herself with a bedsheet, while sporting the fancy hairdo, makeup, jewelry, and high heels that were supposedly a part of every young man's fantasies. Despite their profession, the unseen team of leering interns is essentially no different from the calendar's devotees in their appreciation of cheesecake. Today, it all seems kind of innocent and even amusing, at least until you read the facile rhyme that was appended to the published calendar.

I like the fact that this comes from a doctor's estate and I salute the memory of Alfred W. Wagner, M.D. After this purchase, his medical rounds must have seemed quite commonplace.

This illustration will be sold on April 11-12 at Heritage. No estimate has been published yet, but I'd guess this should fetch $80,000 to $120,000 at least.