Overview
In the late nineteenth century, burlesque performers and actresses used photographic advertisement as business cards to promote themselves. These adverts and business cards could often been found in almost every green room, pinned-up or stuck into “frames of the looking-glasses, in the joints of the gas-burners, and sometimes lying on-top of the sacred cast-case itself.” Understanding the power of photographic advertisements to promote their shows, burlesque women self-constructed their identity to make themselves visible. Being recognized not only within the theater itself but also outside challenged the conventions of women’s place and women’s potential in the public sphere. “To understand both the complicated identity and the subversive nature of the nineteenth-century actress, one must also understand that the era’s views on women’s potential were inextricably tied to their sexuality, which in turn was tied to their level of visibility in the public sphere: regardless of race, class or background, it was generally assumed that the more public the woman, the more “public,” or available, her sexuality", according to historian Maria Elena Buszek. Being sexually fantasized, famous actresses in early 20th century film were both drawn and photographed and put on posters to be sold for personal entertainment. Among the celebrities who were considered sex symbols, one of the most popular early pin-up girls was Betty Grable, whose poster was ubiquitous in the lockers of G.I.s during World War II.
Other pin-ups were artwork depicting idealized versions of what some thought a particularly beautiful or attractive woman should look like. An early example of the latter type was the Gibson girl, a representation of the New Woman drawn by Charles Dana Gibson. “Because the New Woman was symbolic of her new ideas about her sex, it was inevitable that she would also come to symbolize new ideas about sexuality.” Unlike the photographed actresses and dancers generations earlier, fantasy gave artists the freedom to draw women in many different ways. The 1932 Esquire ‘men’s’ magazine featured many drawings and “girlie” cartoons but most was most famous for their Varga girls. Prior to WWII they were praised for their beauty and less focus was on their sexuality. However, during the war the drawings transformed into women playing dress-up in military drag and drawn in seductive manners, like that of a child playing with a doll. The Varga girls became so popular that from 1942-1946, due to a high volume of military demand, “9 million copies of the magazine-without adverts and free of charge was sent to American troops stationed overseas and in domestic bases.” The Varga Girls were adapted as nose art of the WWII bombers; seen not as prostitutes but as patriots for good luck.
Among the other well-known artists specializing in the field were Earle K. Bergey, Enoch Bolles, Gil Elvgren, George Petty, Rolf Armstrong and Art Frahm. Notable contemporary pin-up artists include Elias Chatzoudis, Armando Huerta, and Chuck Bauman. Another is popular pin-up artist Olivia De Berardinis who is most famous for her pin-up art of Bettie Page and her pieces in Playboy.
Read more about this topic: Pin-up Girl