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Pin-up
girl
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Betty Grable |
Rita Hayworth |
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A pin-up girl is a
woman whose physical attractiveness would
entice one to place a picture of her on a
wall. The term was first attested to
in
English in
1941; however the practice is
documented back at least to the
1890s. The “pin up” images could be cut out of
magazines or
newspapers, or be from
postcard or
chromo-lithographs, and so on. Such photos
often appear on calendars, which are meant to be
pinned up anyway. Later,
posters of “pin-up girls” were mass-produced.
Many “pin ups” were
photographs of
celebrities who were considered
sex symbols. One of the most popular early
pin-up girls was
Betty Grable. Her poster was ubiquitous in the
lockers of GIs during
World War II. Others pin-ups were artwork,
often depicting idealized versions of what some
thought particularly a beautiful or attractive
woman should look like. An early example of the
latter type was the Gibson girl, drawn by
Charles Dana Gibson. The genre also gave rise
to several well-known artists specializing in
the field, including
Alberto Vargas and
George
Petty, and numerous lesser artists such
as Art Frahm.
These days men can be considered “pin ups” as
well and there are male equivalents of
attractive and sexy actors such as
Brad Pitt or numerous male models. The
counterpart term to “cheesecake” is “beefcake”.
(From
Wikipedia)
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Mary Pickford |
Greta Garbo |
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A Brief History of the Pin-up
Kevin Freeman
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The modern antecedents of the pin-up can
be traced to the
Gibson Girl in America, who made her debut in 1887, and the Art
Nouveau posters of Alphonso Mucha and Jules Cheret in Europe. The prototypical pin-up
postcard artist of the nineteenth century, Raphael Kirchner, contributed to the establishment of the "pretty
girl" format. Also becoming publicly
acceptable was such mainstream popular art
as 'Psyche at Nature's Mirror' by Paul Thumann, first seen in Munsey's
December 1893 Issue. White Rock beverages
then adopted it as their trademark and, by
1947, the demure Psyche was attending
parties topless! Two popular Glamour icons
to follow the Gibson Girl, were those of
Howard Chandler Christy and
Harrison Fisher.
At the turn of the century, the calendar was the most prominent form of
pin-up material, especially the early
"glamour girl"
formats by Angelo Asti. In
1913 the controversial nude 'September Morn' by Paul Chabas was censored by the New York Society for
the Supression of Vice. Still, the image was subsequently printed on
literally hundreds of thousands of calendars, in addition to candy boxes,
postcards and more. The Art Deco period also made respectable any art
featuring Romantic nudity, such as that of Mabel Rollins Harris,
Maxfield Parrish and Hy
Hintermeister.
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Paul Chabas
September Morn
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Mabel Rollins Harris |
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By the 1920s, the golden age of illustration was in full flower. The new
film industry fueled the
public's appetite for magazines devoted to their celluloid heroes. In the
1800s, a glimpse of a woman's bare ankle could be considered scandalous.
Compare that with the blatantly sexual girls of the
Roaring Twenties by
Enoch Bolles,
George Quintana and
Earle K. Bergey just a
generation later! Corporations and advertising agencies were likewise vying
for the services of talented artists to create identities the public would
respond to. A significant pre-war American advertising icon was the
Arrow Shirt man,
portrayed brilliantly by J.C. Leyendecker. Although Leyendecker is primarily known for his
depictions of men, he had a profound influence upon popular illustrators
such as Norman Rockwell
and many who followed.
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George Quintana |
George Quintana |
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As popular culture devoured its forbidden voyeuristic fantasies in
pulp magazines, and later
paperback books, another trend had begun to legitimize the pin-up as a
serious art form: Higher brow fare offered by such slick periodicals as Esquire (an important predecessor of
Playboy),
Cosmopolitan, The Saturday Evening Post and others. Art Deco
depictions of the female form were considered tasteful enough for inclusion
in these magazines.
Alberto
Vargas makes for a convenient figure as we watch his style evolve from
coy to more explicit. The fact that he started at Esquire and ended
up at Playboy also makes for a barometer of trends within pin-up.
While
Vargas was refining the centerfold concept, a contemporary of his
was pursuing an even higher profile venue - that of superstar commercial
artist. George Petty had
worked for Esquire (Vargas replaced him after a dispute over salary),
but the 'Petty Girl' was a fixture from the 1930s until the 1950s. The Petty
Girl pitched a dizzying array of products to a national audience. She became
so firmly entrenched in the public's consciousness that a
movie was actually
made about her - a fictitious airbrushed icon.
During World War Two, pin-ups accompanied G.I.s in the form of movie star
photos like Betty Grable
and Rita Hayworth.
Vargas pin-ups were also very much in evidence in the barracks and as
nose-art of the Airforce. Additionally, the Louis F. Dow Calendar Company produced special
booklets of pin-up art created by their star artist
Gillette Elvgren to be
mailed overseas. Check out the Collector's Press
Military Pin-Up Kits
for example.
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Rita Hayworth |
Roaring Twenties |
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After the war, Christian Dior introduced his 'new
look', war restrictions on luxury items such as nylons were lifted and
undergarments finally made the transition to two separate pieces, the bra
and the girdle. Society had moved past the androgynous flappers and the
economically depressed 1930s to a new age of prosperity. The move towards
commercialization was well under way. If a pretty, wholesome girl-next-door
could be utilized to sell a product, why not a girl in stockings modestly
flashing some skin (But she's always a 'good girl' - Its not her
fault that playful puppy pulled her skirt over her head!). If anyone is
responsible for the explosion of vibrant beautiful pitchwomen, it is Chicago
artist Haddon Sundblom.
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Haddon Sundblom |
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Sundblom's lush oil technique influenced a roster of important pin-up
artists. The most famous pupil was
Gil Elvgren, who worked at
Sundblom's
Stevens-Gross advertising agency along with such notable artisans as Al Buell,
Harry Ekman,
Bill Medcalf
and
Joyce Ballantyne.
Their technique of using thick layers of paint to achieve a warmth and glow
was dubbed 'the mayonnaise school'. Other descendants of this style of
luminous illustration included Donald 'Rusty' Rust,
Art Frahm,
Peter Driben,
Edward D'Ancona,
Edward Runci,
Vaughan Alden Bass,
Al Brule and
Pearl Frush.
Independent of the national accounts for specific products and services,
there were other fertile markets for pin-up art. Brown & Bigelow, for
example, consider themselves in the 'rememberance advertising' business.
They produce office supplies, playing cards
and calendars, many of which are designed to
be imprinted by small companies and then
given away as promotions. They employed some
of the best talent to design both generic
and industry-specific artwork. Although they, as well as other calendar publishers,
occasionally produced nude or 'racy' product, they sought not to alienate
their conservative or religious customers with such fare.
Brown & Bigelow also supported several styles of pin-up. In addition to
the strait-forward realistic oil paintings of Elvgren and others, they also
utilized pastel artists, such as Rolf Armstrong,
Earl Moran,
Billy
de Vorss and
Zoe Mozert and originated
the 'sketch book' genre pioneered by
Earl MacPherson
and
used to great success by Ballantyne,
T.N. Thompson,
Fritz Willis,
K.O. Munson,
Freeman Elliot,
Ted Withers and others.
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Earl
MacPherson |
Pearl Frush |
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Playboy created a sensation with their
centerfold of Marilyn
Monroe in 1953. Until that time, it was primarily Esquire who
provided opportunities for a generation of pin-up artists, including
Ben-Hur Baz,
Ernest Chiriaka,
Mike Ludlow and
J. Frederick Smith.
Although Esquire had presented photographic pinups previously, they
never contained overt nudity.
An interesting footnote to the
Pop Art movement of
the 1960's is the work of Mel
Ramos, who combined nude pin-ups with recognizable corporate images for
a satiric blend of cheesecake and commercialism. Another modern artist of mention is
Patrick Nagel, who died
tragically early in his promising career. Although Nagel's work has the cool
aesthetic of woodblocks and don't invite the viewer into a realistic
depiction, the fact that his original paintings, and that of his modern
contemporaries, commands incredible prices speaks to the current attitudes
towards the subject of pin-up as a modern art form.
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Patrick Nagel
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The introduction of explicit men's magazines (Penthouse introduced
the world to pubic hair in 1970) made such innocent depictions seem quaint
and old-fashioned. Photography was a quick and easy means to satisfy the
pressures of monthly deadlines. Today's sex symbols seem to be comprised of
pre-packaged teen sensations, silicone-enhanced quasi porn stars and
anorexic 'supermodels'. Modern pin-up artists such as Olivia de Berardinis,
Hajime Sorayama,
Carlos Cartagena,
Jennifer Janesko,
Alain Aslan and
John Kacere have turned
their vision towards photorealistic fantasy or fetishistic subjects and lack
the innocence of their predecessors. (Many also tend to specialize in
airbrush, a technique that can leave a cold, hard and artificial look.)
Still there are those, such as
Dave Stevens, who have
not forgotten how to draw a
good girl in
a bad situation without showing us every anatomical detail of his subjects.
We must thank Dave, not only for creating the Rocketeer character, but for
reviving interest in the great photo pin-up gal of the 1950s, Bettie Page. I am also
particularly fond of some modern European illustrators such as Milo Manara. (There's also
Eric Stanton, who
provided us with bad girls in bad situations, but that is the opposite
direction of cheesecake!) To draw the line arbitrarily, I have created a
page specifically for another interest of mine,
comics. Although Stevens,
Greg Hildebrandt,
Jay Pike,
Bill Ward and others have
experience in the comic world (Which includes the sub-genres of 'good girl',
'bad girl', superheroine and Anime),
their depictions continue to expand my precepts of successful pin-up art and
are documented elsewhere.
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