That a recent show at a prestigious museum in Brooklyn, New York focused on dozens of original cover illustrations from a rare private collection demonstrates the emerging interest and importance of lurid and sensational pulp cover art. Original artwork from this genre and the thematically related but chronologically later Men's Adventure Magazine's of the 1950's - 60's or The Postwar Pulps (as the genre is sometines referred to) is very scarce, as most was destroyed shortly after publication in short-lived runs. Often featuring bizarre and disturbing "damsels in distress" cover art, these newsstand publications pushed whatever envelopes had existed prior to the Hayes Commission and the Decency Act.

Sex Was My Racket Cardwell Higgins	Subway Train Gang Fight Mort Kunstler

An imaginative and crisply rendered watercolor painting by Hannes Bok, one of our favorite science fiction and pulp illustrators. This original and atypical work features an armed warrior skeleton patrolling an apocalyptic mine field. This does not appear to be a published painting but was likely a private commission. Hannes Bok, like Mahlon Blaine, had numerous patrons for whom he would paint pieces in exchange for living expenses, food, and a roof over his head.

A dramatic and tense original pulp magazine cover painting by Harry Fisk for an as of yet undetermined aviation themed pulp title of 1929. The perspective in this painting is really interesting and adds drama and peril to this WWI air force engagement where the American gunner pilot with the black cat insignia has the German aircraft in his sights. This was likely a cover for "Battle Stories" an aviation themed title that Harry Fisk, Stockton Mulford and George Rozen all contributed covers for in 1929.

A rare surviving aviation themed pulp cover painting by Stockton Mulford for the cover of Fawcett's Battle Stories, August 1929 (thanks to Doug Clemons for the i.d.). In this dramatic image, a recently downed airplane smolders as the ejected American Air Force pilot, armed only with a wrench, engages in combat against a German, bayonet-wielding, WWI soldier. Aviation pulps appeared on news-stands in the 1920s as the horror of World War I began to fade from public memory leaving room for the development of heroic and mythic tales of soldiers and aviators. Until the start of the Second World War, the aviation pulps focused on these Great War-themed stories, but after 1941, their content switched to tales of glory from the front lines of WWII.

The original cover painting by H.W. McCauley used for the August 1953 cover of "Fate, True Stories of the Strange and Unknown", illustrating "The Gods of Voodoo" by North Hildabrand. In this offering a dancing pin-up girl levitates oblivious to the black magic and darkness that lurks in the background where a goat is about to get sacrificed in a voodoo ritualistic fire blazing act, creating the collision of beauty and darkness which is in essence what makes the pulp cover paintings by H.J. Ward, H.W. McCauley, Virgil Finlay and other American illustrators fascinating and so desirable today.

An important early cover painting by Jerome Rozen for the June 7, 1927 long running twice monthly adventure pulp title "Popular Stories." This painting combines Westward Ho, covered wagon western Americana imagery with civil war drama, in a vaguely historical scene with intensely powerful imagery. The depiction, in the strong color blocks for which the pulps were famed, features a confederate soldier menacing an elderly African America slave and sympathetic young damsel who are attempting to flee unspoken horrors through the desolate prairie.

A futuristic and important rare surviving science fiction themed mixed medium illustration by Edward Emshwiller used as the cover for the first sci-fi anthology compiled by Gnome Press under the title "Science Fiction Terror Tales" in 1955. Beautifully framed and matted behind glass and signed "Emsh" lower middle with the artists ink-stamped address on the verso.

A haunting and technically masterful painting on board by science fiction and pulp illustrator Hannes Bok, the first artist to win the prestigious Hugo Award. In 1954, Bok contributed this image for the back cover plate of Destiny - No.10, the early sci-fi fanzine published to coincide with the 12th World's Science Fiction Convention in San Francisco. In that usage, the Tolkien-esque martian illustrates the the Richard E. Geis poem "Kill Me Earthmen." This is titled on verso "Sentry" and is dated 1944 lower left.

A spectacular surviving pulp cover painting by Norman Saunders for the Popular Publications August 1952 issue of New Detective Magazine, Volume #18 Issue #1. Saunders masterfully employs an extreme perspective and palette to give the scene an intense sense of danger, tension and drama. During the 1950s heyday of pulp magazines, literally hundreds of titles would be competing for customers any given month and publishers used Saunders dramatic, erotic, and intense covers to give their magazines the edge they needed to attract potential buyers at the newsstand.

This large scale, colorful cheesecake pin up painting features a Hawaiian hula girl serenaded by Rogue Magazine's signature wolf and was created as cover art by Lloyd Rognan for an unidentified issue of the infamous early men's magazine. Beginning with the first issue of Rogue, Rognan developed a series of these cartoonish little red riding hood inspired entanglements, and this example is particularly appealing. A classic example of mid-century hula girl Hawaiiana in which the magazine's signature "Rogue Wolf" plays the part of the haole (or in this case howly?) in tourist shirt.

A rare surviving cover painting by JW Scott, created for a yet unidentified Western pulp publication. A gritty old west scene of a group of cowboys reloading and preparing to fire above a rugged desert pass. The artist created this utilizing an impasto technique that brings a tension and urgent intensity to the Americana Western genre classic. Illustration Magazine recently devoted a large portion of issue #14 on the life and works of John Walter Scott, who worked during the 1930s creating numerous and stylistically diverse pulp covers, the verso canvas notes this was a cover for a "Sept 8 Western," possibly referring to the "Complete Western Book" or "Wild Western Novels" both of which commissioned covers by Scott.