Gil Elvgren
Gillette "Gil" A. Elvgren aka Gil Elvgren (1914-1980) has joined the ranks of Petty and Vargas as one of the premier American pin-up artists...the Norman Rockwell of cheese-cake. His heroines are often caught in humorous but distressing situations.
His exquisite oils of the gorgeous girls-next-door, their skirts often blowing up to reveal lovely nylon-clad limbs - rival his mentor Haddon Sundblom's "Coca-Cola" Santa's for sheer nostalgic pleasure. Born in St. Paul, Minnesota, Gillette A. Elvgren attended University High School. After graduation, he began studying art at the Minneapolis Art Institute.
Some of Gil's fellow students were Coby Whitmore, Al Buell, Andrew Loomis, Ben Stahl, and Robert Skemp; many of whom would later work for Coca-Cola, as would Elvgren. He graduated from the Academy during the depression at the age of twenty-two. Gil joined the stable of artists at Stevens and Gross, Chicago's most prestigious advertising agency. He became a protege of the monumentally talented Haddon Sundblom, who was most famous for his Coca-Cola Santa's.
Working in Sundblom's shop (Stevens-Gross) with Al Buell and Andrew Loomis (among other noted illustrators), Elvgren contributed to various Coca-Cola ads himself. Sundblom who had studied at the American Academy of Fine Art taught his star pupil the lush brush stroke technique that makes Elvgren's girls such glowing wonders.
In 1937, Gil began painting calendar pin-ups for Louis F. Dow, one of America's leading publishing companies.
These pin-ups are easily recognizable because they are signed with a printed version of Elvgren's name, as opposed to his later cursive signature.
Dow paintings were often published first in one format then painted over with different clothes and situations. These 'new' paintings were then republished and distributed to an unsuspecting public.
Around 1944, Gil was approached by Brown and Bigelow, a firm that still dominates the field in producing calendars and advertising specialties. They offered him $1000 per pin-up, which was substantially more than Dow was paying him. Elvgren signed on with B&B. Gil's Brown and Bigelow images all contain his cursive signature.
By the terms of Elvgren's contract with B&B, he would turn out twenty calendar girls each year, ranging from cowgirls of the golden west to sultry sirens of the Riviera.
Elvgren looked for models with vitality and personality and chose young girls who were new to the modeling business. He felt the ideal pin-up was a fifteen-year-old face on a twenty-year-old body, so he combined the two.
An Elvgren model was never portrayed as a femme fatale. She is, rather, the girl next door whose charms are revealed in that fleeting instant when she's been caught unaware of what might be an embarrassing situation.
Gusting winds and playful plants grab at her lovely, long legs. She is intruded upon as she takes a bath. Her skirts get caught in elevator doors, hung up on faucets, and entangled with dog leashes. The elements conspire in divesting her of her clothing.
Gil Elvgren's paintings lend credence to the phrase, "A picture is worth one thousand words." His 30" by 24" oils on stretched canvas are second in value only to originals by Vargas.
- Elvgren paintings
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The Wrong Nail
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- Gil Elvgren - The Complete Pin-Ups
- Hardcover – 2008
- Publisher: Taschen; First Thus edition (2008)
- isbn: 3836521733
- isbn-13: 978-3836521734
- Product Dimensions: 11.8 x 9 x 1.2 inches
- About the Author
- Charles G. Martignette was an art dealer and collector of original paintings by 20th century American illustrators and artists. His gallery in Hallandale Beach, Florida, housed the world’s largest collection of commercial illustration art. As of 1975 he published numerous articles about magazine, advertising, calendar, pulp, paperback, glamour and pin-up art. Paintings from his collection have been exhibited at the Smithsonian Institution as well as many other American and European museums.
- Charles G. Martignette died in 2008 in Hallandale, Florida.
- Louis K. Meisel, owner-manager of one of the oldest galleries in New York’s Soho, has published several books and articles on contemporary art. In addition to art, he collects pin-up work.
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