It is his edge that brings him into the realm of fine art. American pin-up artists, most notably Elvgren, have been called “the original Pop artists, speaking to the cultural moment.”
In the early 1970s, Brown & Bigelow (B&B), a publishing company specializing in promotional products, sold off much of the original art used to illustrate its calendars, scratch pads, matchbooks, and other ephemeral products. B&B had initially found success employing popular artists such as Norman Rockwell and Maxfield Parrish, but subsequently became best known for publishing "pin-up" calendars by artists such as Rolf Armstrong, Gil Elvgren, Earl Moran, and Zoë Mozert. With their depictions of glamorous models, movie stars, bathing beauties, and always fashionable but often provocatively dressed women, the pin-up artists captured the zeitgeist of the 1940s and 1950s. When tastes changed in the 1960s, this style of work fell out of favor and was replaced by more graphic and largely photographic imagery. Unaware of the future value of the original illustrations, B&B sold off hundreds of oil paintings and pastels from the company archives. By chance, I was living in St. Paul, Minnesota, the home of Brown & Bigelow, and was offered the opportunity to purchase a collection of work by Gil Elvgren. Enlisting the financial assistance of a college friend, Al Ravitz, we went ahead and gambled on these beautiful paintings.
The pin-up girl is a unique American icon that has captivated viewers for nearly a century as a symbol of fantasized beauty and mid-century patriotism. Though changing in style slightly over time, pin-up art remains essential to America's cultural and visual history.
In 1895, Life Magazine illustrator Charles Dana Gibson began making images of beautiful women, dubbed ‘Gibson Girls.’ She was a thin yet curvy young woman with an ephemeral beauty who wore the latest styles and provided an easily attainable sense of feminine fantasy. Gibson's idealized version of the American girl set the scene for the pin-up and would continue to be published in Life for the next 20 years.
The popularity of the Gibson girl and others like her was elevated during WWI. Soldiers overseas saw these posters and clippings as a connection to home and a temporary escape from reality. Though sexuality was a critical factor in their existence, the women in these early pin-ups were never portrayed as promiscuous. Instead, they were meant to project a certain beauty and wholesomeness that spoke to the possibility of love, marriage, and children waiting at home after the war.
Women in America gained a new sense of independence during and after the First World War. This independence mixed well with the generally rebellious spirit of the roaring 1920s to bring forth a pin-up girl who was more flirtatious in nature. As women gained more autonomy in society, they became more and more comfortable with their sexuality. This can be reflected in how pin-ups of this time were shown in more revealing clothing and were illustrated in a way that focused more on their sensual curves and the implications of their existence. As the 1930s and 40s rolled around, the pin-up was no longer a symbol of a possible wholesome family life but an example of the beautiful and uniquely confident American woman.
The 1940s are often referred to as the ‘golden age’ of Pin-up art. This is due to its widespread application as a marketing tool amongst various institutions. In addition to Life, other magazines began to publish images of pin-up girls, with Esquire Magazine and Alberto Vargas’ ‘Varga Girls’ being the most recognizable. Hollywood executives saw an opportunity and started to use pin-up art as a means to promote their films with sexually charged imagery. Some famous movie stars drawn and photographed in the pin-up style for this were Betty Grable, Jane Russel, Rita Hayworth, and Marylin Monroe.
At the outset of the war, the United States government used pin-up art as a means of propaganda. Illustrations of beautiful and voluptuous women were gracing recruitment posters and advertisements for the purchase of war bonds. Like in WWI, soldiers in WWII were also writing to Life and Esquire, requesting images of gorgeous American women who, while physically unattainable, reminded them of home and kept morale high. Soldiers kept these images in their pockets, taped or ‘pinned -up’ to walls in either their barracks or submarine quarters. They even began to paint reproductions on the noses of their fighter planes, providing a sense of individuality and cheekiness amongst the uniformity and brutality of war. While not all the pin-up girls were shown in red, white, and blue, they all exemplified a form of Nationalism specific to this mid-century era that was focused on American women living their daily lives in a bold and slightly provocative manner.
The late 1950s and early 60s saw the rise of photography as a widely available medium and began to change the landscape of pin-up art. The sultry nature of the pin-up girl lent itself very easily to photography and allowed for more models to make careers for themselves rather than an illustrator. Bettie Page was a famous pin-up model whose prolific portfolio of pin-up shots marked the official transition from illustration to photography. In 1953, businessman Hugh Hefner clued into this medium shift and capitalized on it. He pushed the boundaries of the seemingly limitless photography medium through his now-infamous Playboy Magazine.
The appreciation and popularity of these illustrations have been on the rise, with prices for original works increasing steadily since 2000. Pin-up art remains an intrinsic part of American culture that generates nostalgia for a time gone by and a recognition of a uniquely American tenacity.
Gil Elvgren 1914–1980
Gillette (Gil) Elvgren was born in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1914. After high school he studied architecture at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts before shifting his focus to art. He relocated to Chicago and enrolled at the American Academy of Art graduating in 1936. Around the same time he began painting pin-ups for the publisher Louis F. Dow, and many of his works were reproduced on military aircraft during World War II. Shortly after graduating, Elvgren found steady work as an artist for the prestigious advertising agency, Stevens and Gross working with Haddon Sundblom who would become his mentor and good friend. In 1944 Elvgren started working exclusively for Brown & Bigelow producing imagery for advertising and calendars, a partnership that would last nearly 30 years.
From working with important clients such as Coca-Cola and General Electric, to illustrating stories in publications such as Good Housekeeping, Redbook and The Saturday Evening Post, Elvgren established himself as one of the greatest in the field. A fine painter and excellent draftsman, his work portrayed the American dream through depictions of the comfort and convenience of the modern American lifestyle. Featuring idyllic family imagery to glamour girls and pin-ups, his work was widely distributed and popular both within the United States and with American soldiers abroad. Today, his work is being defined outside of its commercial value and Elvgren stands out as one of the most important pin-up artists of the 20th century.
