For decades, the erotic watercolors and sketches attributed to “Julie Delcourt” have lived in the shadow of a single name: Gerhard Georg August Gagelmann. Auction houses, wikis, and collectors repeated the same line: Delcourt is Gagelmann’s pseudonym, a post-war private indulgence. The evidence for this…
The scene is instantly recognizable to anyone familiar with 1930s Parisian livres galants. A corseted dominatrix stands like a dark Venus, one hand raised with a whip, the other resting on a curtain that frames her like a proscenium. At her feet: a kneeling man,…
~ 1869 – 1935 Arthur Chaplin was a French painter and the son of the renowned Charles Joshua Chaplin, forged a markedly different artistic path from his father’s lavish, rococo‑styled nudes and dreamy portraits of women. While publicly celebrated for his modest botanical studies, Chaplin’s private oeuvre reveals…
~ 1907 – ? Vala Moro was an Austro‑Hungarian dancer and graphic artist who flourished in Vienna during the intoxicating 1920s and 1930s. Born in 1907, she appeared on prestigious stages such as the Wiener Konzerthaus, where she performed intimate dance‑dramas, including a version of The Burning Girl set…
~ 1863 – 1943 Marian Wawrzeniecki, the enigmatic Polish painter, archaeologist, and art historian, wove a tapestry of shadowed ecstasy and primal rites in his works, emerging from the misty fringes of fin-de-siècle Warsaw. Born into an era of crumbling empires and awakening desires, Wawrzeniecki’s…
~ 1869 – 1942 Šimůnek was a Czech watercolorist, illustrator, and designer renowned for his delicate, atmospheric works that capture everyday life, folklore, and theatrical scenes. Born in the town of Beroun, he pursued formal training at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, studying under…
~ 1900 – 1976 Margaret Hedda Brundage (née Johnson) as an American pulp magazine cover artist renowned for her sensational, pastel-rendered illustrations that defined the visual identity of Weird Tales during the 1930s. Often called the “Frank Frazetta of the 1930s” for her lurid depictions…
~ 1883 – 1941 Karl Maria Diez (often abbreviated C.M. Diez) was an Austrian‑German illustrator whose work is closely associated with the erotic strand of Art Nouveau at the turn of the twentieth century. He is best remembered for providing the elaborate title plate and a series of sensual vignettes…