This large scale, colorful cheesecake pin up painting features a Hawaiian hula girl serenaded by Rogue Magazine’s signature wolf and was created as cover art by Lloyd Rognan for an unidentified issue of the infamous early men’s magazine. Beginning with the first issue of Rogue, Rognan developed a series of these cartoonish little red riding hood inspired entanglements, and this example is particularly appealing. A classic example of mid-century hula girl Hawaiiana in which the magazine’s signature “Rogue Wolf” plays the part of the haole (or in this case howly?) in tourist shirt.
Rognan had a long and prolific career as an illustrator, he studied with an early WPA art student project, contributed frequently for Stars and Stripes. Later his science fiction pulp artwork appeared as covers for such publications as Fate, Imagination and Imaginative Tales , and other sci- fi pulp magazines exploiting the “pre Apollo” moon mission space travel craze. In the 60’s, Rognan was also a regular staff artist for Brown & Bigelow and created a hillbilly humor line called Corn Squeezins.
Grapefruit Moon Gallery has previously sold similar examples of Lloyd Rognan cover paintings for “Rogue for Men” commissioned by the Greenleaf Publishing Company as referenced and shown below.