Interesting Grumman history wall hangings

I picked these up at an estate sale; the seller told me his father used to work for Grumman and these were on the wall of his office. There's no markings to indicate age, and I cannot find them online. I don't think they're all that old, to be honest.

Anyone seen these before? Any ideas who the folks are in the pictures? I know nothing about the company, but I'm about to learn -- these are (IMHO) cool pics.
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Top left is LeRoy Grumman: The guy bottom left is Jake Swirbul;
I also think these are very valuable. Very.

 

As an artist who has done four or five of these things for Boeing retirees I can tell you that they are very well done and are quite valuable. I don't recognize the men but SNJ5 did. I recognize the airplanes and the good work in the art. You have indeed acquired some valuable and important art if they are the originals. Still are valuable if they are prints.

 

I'm pretty.confident they are prints. They are nicely framed, I'm not going to remove the brown paper on the back to pull them out. I paid a grand total of six dollars for the set, so I'm not concerned about value all that much.

 

Nice score. The hangar on print one looks about the same size as yours.

 

Very nice. Plenty of aviation enthusiasts would be thrilled to have it.

Any (older) airplane patches ?? F9F Panther / Cougar. F10F Jaguar, F11F Tiger ?

 

I remember seeing these somewhere during my 18+ years at Grumman.

The first image shows the early years. Roy Grumman is the large image; the three guys over the drawing board to his right are Grumman, Jake Swirbul and Bill Schwendler, generally recognized as the company's three founders.

The small building in the upper left is their original place in Valley Stream; the larger buildings at the bottom date from their time in Farmingdale; Republic took those buildings over when Grumman moved to nearby Bethpage. The small image just above the Goose is Plant 1 at Bethpage in about 1938, when it was the only building on the premises!

The second image shows the wartime and postwar years to about 1960. The balding fellow is the aforementioned Jake Swirbul. I'm not sure who the gentleman to the right is.

The third image brings the story up to date as of the time of the paintings. The two men that I remember from my days there were George Skurla (to the right of the LM) and Joe Gavin (just below the LM). I recognize the other two gentlemen but don't remember their names at present.

 

Thank you Jim! I appreciate all the info, and the timeline.

Looking at the right edge of the last one in the series, there's a design sketch of the X29. That coupled with the Tomcat makes me think this series was 'built' in the late 70s, maybe the early 80s. That doesn't seem too long ago, but it's 30 years or so. . .


@ralfabco, this was the only aviation stuff left by the time I got there. I did ask, the son said they "tossed a lot of old junk out" when they were cleaning. One only wonders what was lost.

 

I have just found this replica of these prints, as a single poster

http://www.cafepress.com/thegrummanstore.369833563

But there's no real source info here: "This original tri-panel painting was done by a former Grumman Aerospace Illustrator."

 

It always amazes me that somehow the name of the " illustrator" is never mentioned or never found. I have seen some of my art republished or shown in brochures with credit to " The Boeing Co." I wonder who did these works because there is a heckuvalot of hard work in them.

 

So are yours prints or the originals?

 

I agree, I seem to think that they date from the early to mid '80s. Admittedly, Grumman didn't get a chance to really do anything new after that, and within a decade they were virtually out of the aircraft business (aside from the E-2, which is still in production, in St. Augustine) and I was out of a job!

 

I contacted the Grumman Store folks, and received a response. According to the email, the original artist is Craig Kavafes, who later left Grumman and became a painter of landscapes and such.

 

Finally got them on the wall.
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Looks great! And the Mondial blueprint really classes up the place!

 

Cool find!!

 

Great stuff!

Along with other things my long term goal is to get a modern interpretation of the venerable Grumman Goose Antilles Seaplanes, The Official Website for the G-21G Super Goose and have some interesting adventures in it!

 

My brother's airplane is the white one in those pics. He has had it for around 20 years.