Brown & Bigelow

An original Gil Elvgren pin-up oil painting created in 1952 for the Brown & Bigelow Calendar Company of Saint Paul Minnesota. This curvy pin-up beauty appeared under the title “Hard To Suit,” a pun the copy department liked so much they used it again in 1954 to describe an Elvgren girl disrobing from her duck hunting garb to reveal lingerie. This is the prototypical Elvgren girl in a comically harrowing and skin revealing pin-up entanglement with the artist’s classic pursed lip expression that evokes surprise, embarrassment and provocation.

Hard To Suit (Who Me?)

Artist: Gil Elvgren

This fresh to the market large pastel pin-up illustration by Zoe Mozert was commissioned for the Brown & Bigelow Calendar Company and used in their 1950 line under the title “Ready To Serve”. Work is nicely lined and beautifully framed and in pristine original untouched condition with a large Brown & Bigelow published Calendar of artwork included in sale.

Ready To Serve

Artist: Zoe Mozert

In this nostalgic themed oil and graphite on board, Bill Medcalf offers a view of a sleigh arriving at a rural family home. Evoking memories of ancestral Christmases past, the scene features a smiling group of three generations of kin enjoying a snowy morning. The mustached man and woman holding a baby are featured in many images created by Medcalf, and presumably these were intended to become a year long calendar, which tells a story of a family through time.

Winter Wonderland

Artist: William Medcalf

Capitalizing on the mid-1950s nostalgia for a lost vision of the American heartland, William Medcalf presents a view of a 19th century midwest barn dance, with smiling couples who appear plucked straight of out of the 1955 Academy Award winning musical Oklahoma!. This large, colorful, highly expressive oil on board with graphite highlights was created as the final preliminary painting for a published Brown & Bigelow calendar image. During the 50s, Bil Medcalf was known as one of the company’s star illustrators, and created numerous 12 page calendar series based around themes of classic Americana.

Barn Dance

Artist: William Medcalf

During the 50s, Bil Medcalf was one of Brown & Bigelow’s star illustrators, creating 12 page calendar series based around themes of classic Americana. Here, he evokes a classic 4th of July celebration with revelers enjoying a day at Riverside Park. From the soldier checking out the ravishing redhead disembarking her carriage, to the new parents cooing over their baby buggy, the scene evokes a vision of a simpler time, and a patriotic and nostalgic sense of 19th century America.

Riverside Park, 4th of July

Artist: William Medcalf

This nostalgic oil and graphite on illustration board, offers a peek into the early days of automotive touring. Bill Medcalf created this as a final presentation painting for one of Brown & Bigelow’s historically themed 12 month Americana calendars. In their finest Sunday clothes, a family taking a jaunt in their 1908-era Ford Model T find themselves lost on a country road. Bringing many of the classic archetypes of early motoring together, the male driver of the car refuses to look at the map his wife is consulting, while a farmer (who has likely never seen a car before) directs them in exactly the opposite direction than they were headed.

Country Drive

Artist: William Medcalf

An original pastel sketch of an aquatically themed pin-up girl in a sailors cap by the prolific American pin-up artist Earl Steffa Moran. This is not a finished calendar pastel it was either a preliminary sketch for his 1941 Brown & Bigelow Calendar “I’ll be Seeing You” or was a presentation drawing given as a gift to a fan, friend or family member. This is 100% guaranteed to be an original pastel by Earl Moran; it is signed in the lower left corner and there is a verso note in the artist’s hand as seen on the back of the frame. Beautifully matted and framed behind glass and ready to enjoy.

Earl Moran Sailor Girl Sketch

Artist: Earl Moran

Simply stated, Thanks for the Orchid, is the finest Joyce Ballantyne artwork to come on the market. Commissioned by Brown & Bigelow in 1955, the luminous quality of the image and the detail and texture of the brush strokes display the impact of Elvgren’s teachings and collaboration on Ballantyne, if they do not indeed betray the hand of Gil Elvgren. Ballantyne worked closely with Elvgren for the better part of a decade, and it has often been suggested that he ghost painted some of her best work.

Thanks for the Orchid

Artist: Joyce Ballantyne

An original 1962 oil on canvas by Gilette Elvgren commissioned by the Brown & Bigelow Calendar Company and published under the titles “Just Right”,”Hat’s Nice” and “The Eyeds of March”. This sexy pin-up masterwork explores the silk stockings & garters scenario for which the artist is best known. A brunette Elvgren girl admires her wiles in an aptly named vanity mirror in this provocative over the shoulder derriere exposed creation. For those of you not keeping track, recent auctions have seen Elvgren’s pin-up works for Brown & Bigelow topping $200,000.00 on three recent occasions. The high water mark of $262,900.00 was seen at Heritage Auctions June 5th, 2008 sale in Dallas Texas (Lot #66097).

Just Right

Artist: Gil Elvgren

A rare and fabulous surviving commissioned calendar art pin-up painting by Al Buell titled on verso A Perfect Pair. From a series of paintings Buell did for Brown & Bigelow, The Playmate Series. This was for the month of October and dates to the late 1940s. Buell worked with Gil Elvgren in the Sundblom studios in Chicago and his accounts included Coca-Cola. His oils are among the best in the genre, they capture the pretty girl next door (albeit generally under-dressed) and have a wholesomeness rare in the pin-up form.

A Perfect Pair

Artist: Al Buell

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