Pin-up art often graced garage walls, industrial factories, barbershops, or other places where men dominated the w
Pinup art often graced garage walls, industrial factories, barbershops, or other places where men presume dominated the working world in the 1940s through the 1960s. They are designed to titillate without giving much away.
Many of the titles are jokes or puns. Harry Ekman’s Mishap at the Picnic (1950) puns the word mishap.
Harry Ekman. Mishap at the Picnic (1950)
Gil Elvgren’s Red, White, and Blue (1966) makes a joke of a pretty redhead wearing a white blouse, sitting on a blue checked picnic blanket. Because the woman has spilled ketchup on her white dress, she demurely lifts it to show a garter and thigh. The painting’s other title is Red Hot and Blue.
Fritz Willis’ Reclining Redhead with Picnic Basket (1960c.) shows a reclining nude woman staring provocatively at the viewer. She wears diamond and pearl earrings and long strands of pearls that hang about her neck and drape over her shoulder just above her uplifted breasts. She wears a long elbow-length white glove on her left arm and high heel shoes. Placed next to her are the makings of a picnic: a basket, a coffee cup and saucer, a battle of Chianti, an orange, a couple of cherries, and a box of strawberries. The message suggests the redhead is the picnic.
Fritz Willis. Reclining Redhead with Picnic Basket (1960c.)
Featured Image: Gil Elvgren. Red, White, and Blue [aka Red, Hot, and Blue] (1966)
See Charles G. Martignette and Louis K. Meisel, The Great American Pin-Up. Cologne, Germany: Taschen, 1999