Above: Detail of radiant glamour girl

Above: The artist’s signature

Above: Detail

A luminous and glowing, glamour girl painting by the well-listed, prolific pin-up illustrator and Hollywood portrait artist Edward Runci. This fine oil on canvas features a Haddon Sundblom / Gil Elvgren inspired color palette and painterly technique. A formally posed beauty queen with a little bit of mischief in her eyes, in white gloves and fur wrap with a purple orchid from an admirer.

Above: Framed in simple gallery frame

Above: Verso view of original pine stretchers and canvas

Edward Runci was a Sicilian-born painter who moved to the United States in the 1930s. Runci’s career took off after World War II and he was well known for his paintings of Calendar Girl pin-ups. His images were used as advertisements for companies such as Coca-Cola, and Nesbitt’s Soda. Although most known for his paintings of women, Runci also painted clowns, landscapes and was a portraitist for the Hollywood elite. Runci spent his last decades in Big Bear Lake, CA where he had a studio and art school.