Earl Moran created this coquettish and sassy pin-up pastel for Brown and Bigelow’s 1941 calendar line.  It was published with the title Fishermans’s Luck. The image shows an outdoorsy redhead beauty fly fishing wading into the water, legs on full display. This fresh-to-the-market original pastel is in a pristine state of conservation and retains the original frame. The work is properly lined with a spacer to keep the pastel away from the glass. The back is unopened and has a number of Brown & Bigelow inventory labels and notations. This is an exciting find and a really fun example of Earl Moran’s pin-up mastery. This image was additionally used as advertising for Red Rock Cola and also appeared as a Mutoscope card with the same title slightly later in the 1940s.

Though Earl Moran had been a national celebrity since 1940 when LIFE magazine featured his work in an extensive feature titled “Speaking of Pictures,” the late 1940s are today considered the most interesting of Moran’s career. The artist moved to Hollywood in 1946 where he quickly began working with a young Blue Book model named Norma Jeane, who would go onto stardom as Marilyn Monroe. The pair worked together often in the years between 1946-1950 and their association has kept Moran’s luminous artworks in the public eye to this day.  Earl Moran was one of the century’s most important pin-up artists and a true star in the illustration world. This large and defining example has it all.