DALLAS, TX – Masterful explosions of lurid menace, scantily clad women, and frenzied mayhem, providing an expressway to the Cold War-era American id, are featured in Heritage Auction Galleries’ selection of 61 pulp and magazine cover paintings by legendary illustrator Mort Künstler, to be sold at auction October 15.
Künstler is now known as one of America’s foremost historical artists, recreating important events of America’s Civil War. In 1992, he was commissioned by the U.S. Postal Service to complete a painting for a stamp honoring the Buffalo Soldiers, the first peacetime all-black regiments in the regular U.S. Army. In 2002, Künstler became the first artist to be honored with a six-month, one-man exhibition at the National Civil War Museum in Harrisburg, Pa. Recent works have sold for up to $250,000.
But while he’s celebrated for his paintings in many different genres, Künstler is perhaps the most well known artist to work on the men’s adventure magazines that gained popularity after World War II – True, Argosy, Stag, For Men Only, MALE, Adventure, and others. He created some of the most dramatic, detailed, and wildly inventive paintings for these titles, which allowed artists like Künstler, James Bama, Tom Lovell, and Frank McCarthy to hone their skills and turn out some of their most memorable work under demanding deadlines. It was during this period that Künstler earned the title “King of Men’s Adventure.”
“The magazines were a training ground for a lot of famous artists and writers,” Künstler says. “I could not do today what I do without that background. We told stories directly and immediately. You learned composition and color. You had to be creative and you had to meet deadlines.”
This exceptional selection of Künstler’s finest postwar pulp cover and interior originals comes directly from the artist.
Highlights of the collection include:
Freedom Girl’s Iron Curtain Escape, For Men Only Cover, June 1964
Staked Out In The Desert, True Adventures Cover, March 1957
Double Trouble, The Giant Manta-Ray, Adventure cover, February 1956
Heritage’s Illustration Art auction will be held October 15, 2008, in Dallas, Texas. For more information, please visit www.HA.com.
Prospective consignors and sellers of Illustration Art are invited to www.HA.com/Sell.