EARL MORAN
Earl Moran (1893-1984) was a master of pastels, though he showed little if any influence of reigning Brown & Bigelow star Rolf Armstrong, whose domain he encroached upon in the '30s. Prolific Moran, lowa-born, a Chicago Art Institute attendee, was soon a superstar himself, creating lively, sexy girls whose relationship with the viewer was seldom a teasing one. Unlike Elvgren and others, Moran did not continually re-work one type of situation, and his pin-ups have more variety than any other major contributor to the field. Breaking in via advertising work for Sears-Roebuck, Moran went on to magazine illustration (Life), movie | posters (Something for the Boys, 1944) and even co-published an early "girlie" magazine, Beauty Parade, contributing covers (sometimes under his middle name non de plume, "Steffa"). His most enduring pin-ups feature his famous late '40s model, Marilyn Monroe. Later he turned to oils, including this gowned glamour girl and, working from the late '50s until his death, an outstanding series of sensual nudes.
ARMITAGE
Armitage is a British oil painter who specialized in wholesome country girls like this one. Glowing blonde hair, apple cheeks, gently scooped neckline (suggesting but not stressing shapeliness), plus the rustic fence and flower garden at her lap, all add up to a romantic, bucolic fantasy. The country girl sub-genre was frequently touched upon by Elvgren himself, but Art Frahm that split personality who specialized in idealized prom dates and girls with their underpants around their ankles joined Armitage in presenting wholesome, attractive country gals in less than overtly sexual poses and situations. Armitage's girls appeared both in the USA and Great Britain. England's first major pin-up artist was Sketch magazine's Raphael Kirchner during World War 1, followed by the American Merlin Enabnit in World War 2. Lambert, Van Jones and Archie Dickens are other prominent British pin-up artists whose work has seldom crossed the Atlantic.
EARL MAC PHERSON
One of the most successful and imitated of pin-up artists, Mac Pherson (born in Oklahoma in 1910) originated the famous "Artist's Sketchbook" series for Brown & Bigelow, in which a central, finished figure is augmented by preliminary-style side sketches. World War 2 interrupted his B & B service, and K.O. Munson became the first of his many successors. After the war, Mac signed with Shaw-Barton for a similar successful series. "Winter Scene," circa 1950, is, typically, a pastel, and the cartoony snowman pencil sketch. Mac worked with live models, and men's magazine spreads of him painting lovely nudes, scattered about his modernistic Southern California studio, added to his legend. The versatile Mac Pherson also has a considerable reputation as a Western artist. In addition, he has begun a new series of signed limited edition pin-up prints for Stabur Graphics.
T.N. THOMPSON
In the early 1950s, Earl Mac Pherson was turning out not only a yearly 12-image calendar for Shaw-Barton, but numerous other pin-ups on playing cards, greeting cards, posters, matchbook covers, books, the entire panoply of pin-up merchandising. He took on Jerry Thompson as an assistant, and they worked together in California. The hardy Mac Pherson somehow came down with polio and, for a time, Thompson approached the level of "ghost." When Mac fully recovered and got back into the pin-up swing, he sold Thompson's contract to another publisher, and from 1952 until at least 1958, T.N. Thompson's "Studio Sketches" was a top-selling rival calendar. Thompson not only worked in Mac's sketchbook style (although eschewing pastels for oil), he used photo reference of Mintahoia D'Roney and other Mac Pherson models. (Note the similarity between T.N.T.'s snowgirl and Mac's.) His earlier calendars are quite good; later an overt cartooniness crept in as he moved away from Mac Pherson's influence.
K.O. MUNSON
When Earl Mac Pherson went into the service, K.O. Munson was drafted from the Brown & Bigelow stable to take over the successful "Artist's Sketchbook" series. Sticking to the pastel medium, Munson replaced Mac Pherson's Petty smooth pin-ups with sharper, crisper lines, though the soft curves of his bright-eyed beauties were definitely appealing. Soft-spoken sportsman Munson had been (and continued to be) a successful commercial artist; over the years his clients included Lucky Strike, Goodyear, Motorola, U.S. Rubber, Mars Candy and Sealy Mattress (an ad for the latter featured a fetching Munson beauty lounging on a cloud). Moving from Chicago to St. Paul in 1936, Munson was a top Brown & Bigelow pin-up artist throughout the 1940s. He spent the '50s back in Chicago, where he opened his own studio, continuing to create pretty girl art for various companies. As painted pin-ups went out of vogue, he had the foresight to shift into shooting cheesecake photo layouts for such men's magazines as Modern Man and Figure.
FREEMAN ELLIOT
When K.O. Munson left Brown & Bigelow, Freeman Elliot, veteran artist of pin-up style covers for Hearst's Pictorial Weekly, took over the famous "sketchbook" calendar series. Elliot's girls were gorgeous, impossibly long-limbed creatures, often involved in whimsical situations painting the house in a bikini, answering the phone in a towel, cooking in nothing but a tiny apron. Elliot's style was closer to Munson's than Mac Pherson's, and his girls have a glamour and glow rivaling Elvgren's. His "sketchbook" pages are nicely cluttered, side sketches in both pencil and color embellishing the comic situations, even telling a story of sorts. What medium exactly Freeman is working in is uncertain; the handful of originals that have surfaced are oils on board. He also contributed several images to the 1953 Ballyhoo calendar, the other contributors to which were Esquire pin-up artists. Here his style had evolved into a lushIy sensual one similar to Al Moore and Ernest Chiriaka.
TED WITHERS
Brown & Bigelow did several spin-offs of its Mac Pherson-originated "Artist's Sketchbook" series. Promo indicates Ted Withers worked out of Tinsel Town, turning out sketchbook calendars in the early '50s, supposedly featuring Hollywood starlets who were rarely identifiable, even if the blonde on this card is clearly Marilyn Monroe. Withers' femmes were dreamy in face, figure and attitude; self-absorbed, they lounged nude or semi-nude (more explicitly than typical for the times), studying scripts in the altogether, or trying on a bikini bottom, or getting their hair brushed by some mostly off-stage attendee. He apparently worked in gouache, although oil originals of his have turned up; his sketchbook pin-ups included Mac Pherson-like pencil "side sketches." In Marianne Ohl Phillips article on Zoe Mozert, the late great Zoe described Withers as "5' 10" and just delightful." According to Mozert, Withers was from New Zealand and did movie title card art for Columbia Pictures prior to his pin-up career.
BILL RANDALL
Bill Randall's mid-'50s "Date Book" calendars for Brown & Bigelow were yet another of the publishing firm's spinoffs of the successful Mac Pherson-created "Artist's Sketchbook" series. Randall's approach and style, however, were much closer to Freeman Elliot's than Mac Pherson's. Randall apparently worked in gouache, giving his pinups a brighter and somewhat flatter (if not flat-chested) look. He mined the Elliot-style humorous situation for further comic effect, with loose "side sketches" replaced by finished cartoon embellishments. Randall girls resemble Elvgren's in face and form preparing a pancake breakfast topless, painting lawn furniture only to have their skimpy tops snap. Yet any embarrassment was tied to tease: these girls were not easily abashed. They were in fact brazenly showing off to the viewer. Prior to his "Date Book" series, Randall did attractive but more sedate pin-up-style covers for Hearst's Pictorial Weekly.
FRITZ WILLIS
Willis, the final successor to Earl Mac Pherson in the Brown & Bigelow "Sketchbook" series, is perhaps the last major pin-up artist and the only one truly reflecting the sexual revolution. Primarily known for depicting brazenly sensual '60s women in semi-nude disarray, Willis has only a superficial similarity to Elvgren, the innocent girls next door of the latter having little to do with the wanton women of the former. Oklahoma-born Willis had a distinguished career in magazine illustration. His clients included Collier's, Redbook, and The Saturday Evening Post, and his association with Esquire made him one of that magazine's earliest entries in its ultimately vain attempt to create a new Petty or Varga. The bathing beauty pictured here "All American Girl," 1964, an oil, is rather atypically fresh and innocent, for Willis' later work, harking back to his 1940s Esquire approach. Collectors should be on the look-out for Willis' how-to art books for Walter Foster.
JOE DE MERS
In the late 1940s, when Alberto Vargas left Esquire in a flap over money, the sophisticated men's magazine tried to find a replacement among the most talented commercial artists of the day. One of these was Joe DeMers, born in 1910 in San Diego, California, a fine artist who as early as 1933 had an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. DeMers had a remarkable career production illustrator for Warner Brothers Studios, successful book publisher freelance commercial artist appearing in such top markets as The Saturday Evening Post, McCall's, Reader's Digest, and Ladies' Home Journal. At last report he had his own gallery on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. His startling use of abstract design with more realistic looking women is typical of modern, post-World War 2 magazine illustration. After contributing to a 1948 Esquire calendar, he was not chosen to be the new "Varga," but did a few pin-ups for Shaw-Barton, earning a minor but interesting position in the history of pin-up art.
ERNIST CHIRIAKA
Esquire's search for a Varga replacement included such gifted commercial artists of the late 1940s and early 1950s as Ward Bennett, Ren Wicks, Robert Patterson, Eddie Chan and Al Moore. The latter was close to being declared winner, but ultimately Ernest Chiriaka (born 1920) was as close to a new pin-up star as the magazine came. Chiriaka contributed solo pin-up calendars to Esquire from 1953 through 1957. Chiriaka's women (they weren't really "girls") were sultry and glamorous, often exotically costumed, and sometimes completely un-costumed. These were steamy, sophisticated, not at all wholesome pin-ups. Like DeMers, Chiriaka denoted the post-war modern approach: striking design juxtaposed with realistically rendered women. The use of gouache allowed for more gradations of skin tone, trading supple Elvgren smoothness for a palpably sensual earthiness. In the 1940s and' '50s, Chiriaka's other area of expertise oddly - enough, considering the modern elegance of his sex goddesses - was western pulp and paperback covers.
ALEX RAYMOND
The late 1940s/early '50s search by Esquire to replace Varga was not the first time the men's magazine had tried to supplant a superstar pin-up artist. Before landing Alberto Vargas, Esquire had tried to fill the Petty slot with one of America's top comic strip illustrators, Alex Raymond. New York-born Raymond (1909-1956) was justly famed for his comic strips Secret Agent X-9, Flash Gordon and Jungle Jim (later he would add the detective feature Rip Kirby to this successful string). Certainly Raymond was rivaled only by Milton Caniff and Al Capp for creating "good girl art" in the comics; and his crisp romantic realism with his solid illustrative style, in the John La Gatta manner made him a perfect choice to enter the pin-up arena. A handful of pin-ups for Esquire, and the lovely Look magazine cheerleader on this card, represent the career in pin-ups that Raymond never quite had. Those in search of pretty Raymond girls, however, need only look to his famous comic strips for plentiful examples.
AL MOORE
Heir apparent to Varga at Esquire was Al Moore, who shared the magazine's 1948 calendar with Ben-Hur Baz and other major commercial artists contending for the role. In 1949, 1950 and 1951, Moore was solo artist on the best selling, most prestigious pin-up calendar around. Why he was replaced is unknown another money dispute, possibly? Petty or Varga-level fame eluded Moore, but his pin-ups are among the best of the late 1940s/early '50s, bridging the glamour girls-next-door of Elvgren and the post-war, modern look of Chiriaka and others. Like Elvgren, Moore created voluptuous dream women; but his strong design sense linked him to Chiriaka, as did his use of gouache to give his girls graduated skin tones and a sensual, earthy quality. Moore's women were wide-eyed wonders, usually blonde, curves spilling out of bikini tops, full bruised lips promising passion. These provocative yet All American temptresses preened for the viewer, very direct, seldom coy, promising the sexual revolution that was to come.
EDDIE CHAN
After Al Moore's three-year solo stint as Esquire calendar artist, the 1952 edition presented the next batch of contenders, including Robert Patterson, Ward Bennett, Ren Wicks and Chiriaka. Eddie Chan, veteran advertising artist and Hearst American Weekly cover artist, also contributed to the '52 calendar, and to the 1953 Ballyhoo calendar (including the wide-eyed gardener on this card), showcasing charming, shapely, wide-eyed women. Chan reflected the modern, post-war approach of Jon Whitcomb and Al Parker: realistically drawn figures and strong design elements combining with gouache to provide a sharp-edged, flatter look. This plus pastel-colored dress and props typified the illos in such magazines as Saturday Evening Post and Collier's. The ultra-modern, even harsh style of Mike Ludlow brought the famed calendar series to a close in 1957, by which time Playboy's similar but photographic calendars had made Esquire's painted ladies an anachronism.
ARTHUR SARNOFF
Sarnoff (born 1912) has had a remarkable career: studied with Andrew Wyeth; worked for both the pulps and every major slick magazine from Saturday Evening Post to Cosmopolitan; handled top advertising accounts (creating the famous "Karo" babies campaign); painted portraits of such luminaries as Bob Hope and JFK. His work has been the subject of major exhibitions, and his lithos, prints and posters of sporting subjects and Western scenes have been popular sellers. If that isn't enough, Sarnoff is responsible for the world-famed camp classics of anthropomorphic gambler dogs. His pool-playing dog picture, The Hustler, is said to be the best selling print in American art history. Sarnoff was also one of the best pin-up artists around, his oils of lovely girls in negligees in the 1940s for Kemper-Thomas Company reflecting an Elvgren/Sundblom influence, with his later bathing beauties in gouache, like this beaming blonde (the contrasting driftwood providing a typically 1950s touch), linking him to the Al Moore/Chiriaka style.
RUTH DECKARD
This wonderful art-deco blonde may seem to shout late 1930s or early '40s, but she's actually from a 1950 calendar. Chicago-area artist Deckard worked for Louis F Dow in the late 1940s and into the '50s, creating cuties who were often caught on the phone, sometimes with playful puppies nipping at well-turned ankles. The apparently self-taught, almost primitive Deckard turned out some truly awkward paintings, but even the worst of them has a wide-eyed naive charm. Deckard was assumed to be a man until a small handful of originals turned up recently, revealing the artist's first name to be Ruth. Ruth Deckard joins Mozert, Ballantyne and Frush on the small but impressive list of ladies who painted pin-ups.