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.