Original Art from the Grand Age of American Illustration
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 lovely calendar used pin-up pastel for The Brown & Bigelow Calendar Company by K.O. Munson from the late 1940s to early 50s. A fresh faced red headed bathing beauty finds herself under close scrutiny below the suns colorful rays in this nautically themed classic pin-up pastel illustration. Work is in a very fine vibrant […]
Artist: K.O. Munson
An iconic early original pin up oil painting by Gil Elvgren for the Louis F. Dow calendar company of Saint Paul, Minnesota titled “A Hitch in Time.” In this never before offered published calendar work, a pretty modernist pin up girl is caught hitching up her sexy silk stockings in a hurried moment while tangled […]
Artist: Gil Elvgren
A fabulous surviving Gil Elvgren pin up oil painting from the Brown & Bigelow Calendar line of 1953, published with the title Out of the Running (What A Heel!). A pretty party girl laments the broken shoe that has temporarily taken her away from the evening’s fun. The image was a tremendous success for the company, […]
Artist: Gil Elvgren
This original gouache and ink Al Buell published pin up was painted in 1959 for the Brown & Bigelow Calendar Company, and first appeared as the June 1961 image for a 12 page calendar titled Buell’s Beauties. The model appears as an artist, brush in hand, in this colorful mid-century modernist calendar painting. […]
Artist: Al Buell
In May of 1919, on the advice of Sam Kingston, general manager for Florence Ziegfeld, Alberto Vargas applied to be the in-house artist for the Ziegfeld Follies. The rest, as they say, was history. At only 24 Vargas had already established himself as a freelance illustrator of beautiful women, with a sophisticated style inspired by Raphael […]
Artist: Alberto Vargas
Seen gamely climbing into a larger than life pipe threader in ballet slippers and skimpy pink apron, this redheaded Petty girl is an unlikely yet alluring gearhead. A published mixed media pin-up illustration by George Petty which appeared as a calendar for Ridgid Tools in September of 1952, as part of his […]
Artist: George Petty
Randolph Hearst commissioned this fine original oil on illustration board from Henry Clive for the cover of the American Weekly Magazine as part of Clive’s Pin Up Girls of History series, which reinvisioned contemporary starlet beauties as notorious vixens from throughout the past. In this example, the lovely 20th Century Fox film star Gene Tierney C. […]
Artist: Henry Clive
This lighthearted cheesecake pin up illustration graced the January 1956 page of Bill Randall’s wildly popular “Randall’s Date Book” 12 page calendar series. For his “Date Book” commissions, Randall played off the success of the Brown & Bigelow Calendar company’s yearly Artist Sketch Pad pin up calendar, while adding his own charm and whimsy. Work […]
Artist: Bill Randall
This lighthearted cheesecake pin up illustration graced the January 1957 page of Bill Randall’s wildly popular “Randall’s Date Book” 12 page calendar series. For his “Date Book” commissions, Randall played off the success of the Brown & Bigelow Calendar company’s yearly Artist Sketch Pad pin up calendar, while adding his own charm and whimsy. Working […]
Artist: Bill Randall
A wildly erotic and revealed pin-up girl cover painting by the well regarded and prolific American illustrator and cover artist Paul Rader, for the 1960 Midwood Book titled “The Blonde”. Part of what is today considered the golden age of lesbian pulp fiction, “The Blonde” tells the story of a tormented working girl who finds […]
Artist: Paul Rader
