• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Recent Additions
  • The Gallery
    • About
    • Browse by Topic
    • eBay
    • Sorry, It’s Sold
  • Guarantee & Policies
    • Guarantee
    • Shipping & Payment
    • Amazon.com Shipping Information
    • eBay Buyer Protection
  • Contact & Social Media
    • E-mail & Phone
    • eBay
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Pinterest
    • Twitter

Grapefruit Moon Gallery

Original Art from the Grand Age of American Illustration

  • Gallery Blog
  • Golden Gallery
  • Fine & Decorative
  • Illustration & Advertising
  • Paperback & Pulp
  • Pin-Up & Glamour
Sorry, It's Sold

Hard To Suit (Who Me?)

Artist:Gil Elvgren
Date:1952
Medium:Oil On Stretched Canvas
Dimensions:Sight size 24" x 30" Framed 30" x 36"
Condition:Mint
Original Use:Pin Up Art for The Brown & Bigelow Calendar Company
Price: S O L D
Above: Full view of oil painting
Above: The artist’s signature lower right
Above: 1952 B & B Dipsy-Doodle Calendar “Hard to Suit” included in sale
Above: The model as posed by Elvgren for the sitting (Thanks Marianne and MOP pinups)

An original Gil Elvgren pin up oil painting created in 1952 for the Brown & Bigelow Calendar Company of Saint Paul Minnesota. This curvy pin up beauty appeared under the title “Hard To Suit,” a pun the copy department liked so much they used it again in 1954 for another pin up featuring an Elvgren girl disrobing from her duck hunting garb to reveal lingerie. This is the prototypical Elvgren girl in a comically harrowing and skin revealing pin up entanglement with the artist’s classic pursed lip expression that evokes surprise, embarrassment and provocation.

Above: Detail
Above: Detail
Above: Detail
Above: Detail

A vintage 1952 printed Brown & Bigelow Calendar of the image and recent photographic copy of the model as she posed for the sitting are included in the sale.

Above: Verso view of original untouched canvas and original pine stretchers
Above: Framed view
Above: The image as it appeared as an advertising blotter

Gil Elvgren was the most successful and perhaps most talented pin-up artist of the day, his works when they come on the market today handily eclipse the other artists auction records working in the genre, with a recent sale of his work titled “Gay Nymph” reaching an astronomical sale price of $286,800.00 at a recent Heritage Art Auction lot #5059 – May 2011.
This was from the collection of Charles Martignette and was purchased from him in the 1980s by a private collector.

Hard To Suit (Who Me?)

Artist: Gil Elvgren
Price:  S O L D

Filed Under: Sorry, It's Sold
Tagged With: 1950s, bathing beauty, beach, Brown & Bigelow, Charles Martignette, cheesecake, Gil Elvgren, Great American Pin-up, original calendar art, pin up, The Golden Gallery
Added to Gallery: July 27, 2011

 

Contact Grapefruit Moon Gallery



    Primary Sidebar

    Join our mailing list

    Grapefruit Moon Gallery Around the Web

    Facebook
    Instagram
    Pinterest
    Twitter

    Recent Additions

    Gone With the Wind

    Pigeon Feathers

    Packed Dirt, Churchgoing, A Dying Cat, A Traded Car

    Footer

    About Grapefruit Moon Gallery

    Grapefruit Moon Gallery, based in Minneapolis MN, specializes in vintage pin up and original illustration art.  We are the proud home of the Bunny Yeager archives.

    Since 2003, Grapefruit Moon Gallery has been a leading dealer of exclusive original paintings by Gil Elvgren, Alberto Vargas, Earl Moran, Rolf Armstrong and Henry Clive, as well as vintage photographs, prints, and period decorative arts in ceramic and metal.

    All artworks featured are original, accurately represented, and guaranteed to be the work of the named artist.

    Interested buyers may view pieces by appointment and we are happy to answer any questions you may have. [Contact Us]

    Grapefruit Moon Gallery on eBay

     

    Grapefruit Moon Gallery on Instagram

    View on Instagram

    Copyright © 2023