Gil Elvgren is the artist behind our 2011 Pin Up Girls Calendar. Elvgren originally wanted to be an architect and in fact enrolled at the University of Minnesota to study architecture and design. In 1933, the idealistic young Elvgren decided to change career paths and enrolled in the American Academy of Art. Influenced by artists such as Charles Dana Gibson and Andrew Donnis, it wasn’t long before Elvgren created a unique personal style.
During his more than forty-year professional career, he established himself as one of America’s preeminent artists of the twentieth century. He is best known for his paintings of pin up girls that were published as calendars by Louis F. Dow Company and Brown and Bigelow. The subjects of his paintings were never the femme fatale or the female adventuress, but rather the “girl next door whose charms are innocently revealed in that fleeting instant.”
In addition to his calendar pin up paintings, Elvgren also worked as an illustrator for Coca-Cola advertisements which portrayed the American dream of a secure comfortable lifestyle. Elvgren also worked on advertising campaigns for well-known American companies and products such as Orange Crush, Schlitz Beer, Sealy Mattress, General Electric, Sylvania, and Napa Auto Parts (the above painting, NAPA Skier was done for Napa Auto Parts in the 1950s).
Are you familiar with Elvgren’s art? Comment below and let us know which of his paintings is your favorite!
(Photos courtesy Gilelvgren.com)
