Before there was Playboy, Penthouse and Pantyhose there were Pin-ups.
 

Taken from the original text:

A Brief History of the Pin-up

By the 1920s, the golden age of illustration had begun. The new film industry fueled the public's appetite for magazines devoted to their celluloid heroes. In the 1800s, a glimpse of a woman's bare ankle could be considered scandalous. Compare that with the blatantly sexual girls of the Roaring Twenties by Enoch Bolles, George Quintana and Earle K. Bergey just a generation later! Corporations and advertising agencies were likewise vying for the services of talented artists to create identities the public would respond to. A significant pre-war American advertising icon was the Arrow Shirt man, portrayed brilliantly by J.C. Leyendecker. Although Leyendecker is primarily known for his depictions of men, he had a profound influence upon popular illustrators such as Norman Rockwell and many who followed.

As popular culture devoured its forbidden voyeuristic fantasies in pulp magazines, and later paperback books, another trend had begun to legitimize the pin-up as a serious art form: Higher brow fare offered by such slick periodicals as Esquire (an important predecessor of Playboy), Cosmopolitan, The Saturday Evening Post and others. Art Deco depictions of the female form were considered tasteful enough for inclusion in these magazines. Alberto Vargas makes for a convenient figure as we watch his style evolve from coy to more explicit. The fact that he started at Esquire and ended up at Playboy also makes for a barometer of trends within pin-up.

While Vargas was refining the centerfold concept, a contemporary of his was pursuing an even higher profile venue - that of superstar commercial artist. George Petty had worked for Esquire (Vargas replaced him after a dispute over salary), but the 'Petty Girl' was a fixture from the 1930s until the 1950s. The Petty Girl pitched a dizzying array of products to a national audience. She became so firmly entrenched in the public's consciousness that a movie was actually made about her - a fictitious airbrushed icon.

During World War Two, pin-ups accompanied G.I.s in the form of movie star photos like Betty Grable and Rita Hayworth. Vargas pin-ups were also very much in evidence in the barracks and as nose-art of the Airforce. Additionally, the Louis F. Dow Calendar Company produced special booklets of pin-up art created by their star artist Gillette Elvgren to be mailed overseas.

After the war, Christian Dior introduced his 'new look', war restrictions on luxury items such as nylons were lifted and undergarments finally made the transition to two separate pieces, the bra and the girdle. Society had moved past the androgynous flappers and the economically depressed 1930s to a new age of prosperity. The move towards commercialization was well under way. If a pretty, wholesome girl-next-door could be utilized to sell a product, why not a girl in stockings modestly flashing some skin (But she's always a 'good girl' - Its not her fault that playful puppy pulled her skirt over her head!). If anyone is responsible for the explosion of vibrant beautiful pitchwomen, it is Chicago artist Haddon Sundblom.

Sundblom's lush oil technique influenced a roster of important pin-up artists. The most famous pupil was Gil Elvgren, who worked at Sundblom's Stevens-Gross advertising agency along with such notable artisans as Al Buell, Harry Ekman, Bill Medcalf and Joyce Ballantyne. Their technique of using thick layers of paint to achieve a warmth and glow was dubbed 'the mayonnaise school'. Other descendants of this style of luminous illustration included Donald 'Rusty' Rust, Art Frahm, Peter Driben, Edward D'Ancona, Edward Runci, Vaughan Alden Bass, Al Brulé and Pearl Frush.

Independent of the national accounts for specific products and services, there were other fertile markets for pin-up art. Brown & Bigelow, for example, consider themselves in the 'rememberance advertising' business. They produce office supplies, playing cards and calendars, many of which are designed to be imprinted by small companies and then given away as promotions. They employed some of the best talent to design both generic and industry-specific artwork (See George Petty's Rigid Tools series for example). Although they, as well as other calendar publishers, occasionally produced nude or 'racy' product, they sought not to alienate their conservative or religious customers with such fare.

Brown & Bigelow also supported several styles of pin-up. In addition to the strait-forward realistic oil paintings of Elvgren and others, they also utilized pastel artists, such as Rolf Armstrong, Earl Moran and Zoe Mozert and originated the 'sketch book' genre pioneered by Earl MacPherson and used to great success by Ballantyne, T.N. Thompson, Fritz Willis, K.O. Munson, Freeman Elliot, Ted Withers and others.

Another arena that no 'respectable' artist would consider entering was the insatiable need for dramatic and titillating covers for the pulp magazines and paperback books of the 1950's. Although this too is an fascinating field (At least it is for me!).

Playboy created a sensation with their centerfold of Marilyn Monroe in 1953. Until that time, it was primarily Esquire who provided opportunities for a generation of pin-up artists, including Ben-Hur Baz, Ernest Chiriaka, Mike Ludlow and J. Frederick Smith. Although Esquire had presented photographic pinups previously, they never contained overt nudity.

An interesting footnote to the Pop Art movement of the 1960's is the work of Mel Ramos, who combined nude pin-ups with recognizable corporate images for a satiric blend of cheesecake and commercialism. Another modern artist of mention is Patrick Nagel, who died tragically early in his promising career. Although I'm not a great fan of Nagel's work, the fact that his original paintings, and that of his modern contemporaries, commands incredible prices speaks to the current attitudes towards the subject of pin-up as a modern artform.

The introduction of explicit men's magazines (Penthouse introduced the world to pubic hair in 1970) made such innocent depictions seem quaint and old-fashioned. Photography was a quick and easy means to satisfy the pressures of monthly deadlines. Today's sex symbols seem to be comprised of pre-packaged teen sensations, silicone-enhanced quasi porn stars and anorexic 'supermodels'. Modern pin-up artists such as Olivia de Berardinis, Hajime Sorayama, Carlos Cartagena, Jennifer Janesko, Alain Aslan and John Kacere have turned their vision towards photorealistic fantasy or fetishistic subjects and lack the innocence of their predecessors. (They also tend to specialize in airbrush, a technique that can leave a cold, hard and artificial look.)

Still there are those, such as Dave Stevens, who have not forgotten how to draw a good girl in a bad situation without showing us every anatomical detail of his subjects. We must thank Dave, not only for creating the Rocketeer character, but for reviving interest in the great photo pin-up gal of the 1950s, Bettie Page. (There's also Eric Stanton, who provided us with bad girls in bad situations, but that is the opposite direction of cheesecake!)