A sexy and mod late 1950s gouache illustration on board by Arnold Kohn that we believe to have been used as a pin-up calendar commission.
Artist: Arnold Kohn
Pin-Up & Glamour Art
Risqué and fetching maidens have always been popular artistic subjects and the perfect vehicle to advertise just about any product, add allure to any magazine, or brighten any calendar. In the 1930s, Rolf Armstrong and Billy Devorss’s Art Deco sophisticates were everyone’s dream girl. During World War II, George Petty and Alberto Vargas created patriotic lithe modernist heartbreakers for the pages of Esquire Magazine to keep servicemen company, and soon there was a calendar girl for every taste--whether you preferred the girl next door or the one from the wrong side of the tracks. In post-war America, the youthful spirit personified by Earl Moran’s cheesecake depictions of Marilyn Monroe reigned, and pin up and glamour art remained unflaggingly popular. Today, original pin up and glamour art is more coveted by collectors than ever, and its influence on contemporary fashion, art, and culture is everywhere.
A dazzling original 1942 pastel on illustration board by Weston Taylor, commissioned by the C. Moss Calendar company for a pin-up calendar that was titled “Disconnected”. This is a classic art deco entanglement from pin-up’s best era, when flirty and coyly posed young flapper girls found themselves in precarious and risque situations that defy logic and often times words. Work is vivid, well rendered and in a fine gallery frame. Two archived vintage calendar prints of image included in sale. The Great American Pin-up personified.
Artist: Weston Taylor
An original oil on board illustration used as the cover for Joker No.16 – a 1949 digest sized magazine advertising “More Snappy Cartoons – Smack Full of Laughter!” A leggy, busty and quintessentially Driben pin-up beauty is seen trying her hand at a little “sofa fission” as the caption will have you know. Illustration is in a fine state of conservation, nicely framed and matted in a period, wide profile, handsome, gesso art deco frame.
Artist: Peter Driben
This Jane Russell inspired Americana cheesecake pin up illustration graced the September 1957 page of Bill Randall’s “Randall’s Date Book” calendar.
Artist: Bill Randall
The distinguished American artist and illustrator Walt Otto created this glitzy magic-themed original published pin up oil on canvas calendar painting in the late 1950’s.
Artist: Walt Otto
This endearing original 1967 oil on canvas painting by Gil Elvgren was created for the Brown & Bigelow calendar company and published under the title Ruffled Feathers. A spirited and colorful pin-up painting featuring a redheaded photographer in silk stockings and garters who runs into unexpected troubles as she attempts to capture the likeness of […]
Artist: Gil Elvgren
A pristine and important surviving Henry Clive illustration painting that appeared as the cover for the August 27, 1944 issue of The American Weekly, a Randolph Hearst publication. The magazine often commissioned Clive to create serialized images of enchantresses that shared a thematic thread. In this case – in the year 1944 the artist was […]
Artist: Henry Clive
An original Calendar published luminous oil on canvas by noted and prolific pin-up illustrator Art Frahm used in 1956 by “The Goes Litho. Company” of Chicago Illinois. This large and pristine pin-up painting displays to fine effect Art Frahm’s softer and less rough around the edges sensibilities and provides a good-girl art glamour counterpart to his infamous series of “panties dropped” pin-up paintings that have recently sold from the Charles Martignette estate and found buyers at between $20,000 – $25,000.00 per work at auction.
Artist: Art Frahm
A stylish and decidedly art deco cover illustration for the September 9th, 1939 issue of Liberty magazine, painted by the prolific illustrator Victor Tchetchet. Depicting a Carole Lombard-esque blonde bombshell in a Diana the Huntress mythological pose. Dedicated and inscribed to the fabled Hollywood film producer Otto Preminger, as seen lower right. Painting has been handsomely […]
Artist: Victor Tchetchet
This is a large preliminary charcoal drawing by Gil Elvgren that was an alternative suggestion for a mid-1950s speciality advertising calendar for Brown & Bigelow’s exclusive “Miss Sylvania” line for Sylvania electric. The Miss Sylvania account adapted The Great American Pin-up to middle America’s buttoned up sensibilities. Each year one of the calendar company’s star […]
Artist: Gil Elvgren
