Above: Full view of pastel

Above: Detail

A sassy and colorful glamour girl pastel rendering by Earl Moran, created for the Brown & Bigelow Calendar Company in the early 1950s. Caption reads “Whenever I dance / With you alone, / Before I know it / The evening’s flown.” Work is beautifully matted and framed and in a fine state of preservation, a 1954 Brown & Bigelow Calendar of image is included in sale.

Above: The artist’s signature

Above: Framed view in period antique wide profile gesso frame

Earl Steffa Moran was born in Belle Plaine, Iowa, in December 1893. Like many of his contemporaries Moran studied at the Chicago Art Institute, where he studied for two years before moving on to Manhattan and enrolling at the Art Students League.

In 1932 he signed an exclusive contract with Brown & Bigelow and produced an astounding assortment of pin up creations to satiate an American public that was consumed with Calendar Girls and all things pin-up.

Above: Calendar Image by Brown & Bigelow

Above: Advertising Calendar from 1954

Earl Moran became one of America’s best known pin up artists after Life magazine ran an article on him in 1940. His most famous model was of course the young Marilyn Monroe, who modeled for Moran between 1946 and 1950. Earl Moran continued to paint for Brown and Bigelow well into the late fifties before deciding to retire to paint fine art subjects. He signed with Aaron Brothers Galleries and continued to paint for collectors until 1982 when his eyesight started to fail. Earl Moran died in 1984, in Santa Monica.

Above: Verso filing label