American artist Fritz Willis's seductive pin-ups

Pin-up

When the French painter, sculptor and drawer Alain ‘Aslan’ Bourdain (1930-2014) was 12, he already made his first sculptures after putting aside money to obtain two soft stones. The Bordeaux-born..

is an art style that emerged in the 1890s, although the term ‘pin-up’ was for the first tι̇ɱe used in 1941. The practice of pinning posters up the walls was connected with the expansion of newspapers and journals, especially women’s magazines advertising

At first glance, the advertising campaign the Belgian weekly magazine Humo did a few years ago, looks like the bumbling of an inattentive designer. But if you look twice, you will see the idea behind these ads for a..

cosmetics. Gibson girl, invented by Charles Dana Gibson in the USA, was the ancestor of a pin-up girl, seductively looking from the pages of the Life magazine.

Eastern Cousins

Gibson girls and their pin-up sisters have distant Eastern cousins, Japanese beauties depicted by Utamaro

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, Shigenobu

The following forceful shunga design by Yanagawa Shigenobu (1787-1833) is the 10th plate from his masterpiece ‘ Willow Storm ‘ published in the late 1820s. Palanquin Bearers It exhibits a gang rape..

, Hokusai

Japanese greatest artist in history Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) excelled in all ukiyo-e genres. He produced his most iconic designs in the landscape ( The Great Wave ) and the shunga ( The Dream of the..

, and, of course, Keisai Eisen

After Hokusai , undoubtedly the most striking figure among the later shunga artists is Keisai Eisen (1790-1848). Eisen was to prove one of the most prolific (together with Kunisada ) of all ukiyo-e shunga masters…

, who worked majorly in the bijinga genre. Ukiyo-e masters shaped the cultural landscape as much as their European

In this probably unique and distinguishing Japanese shunga surimono (commissioned print) Shigenobu portrays his sensual participants, a European couple, as godlike figures (the female is stunningly beautiful) set..

and American colleagues by showing the picture of an ideal woɱan. Pin-up beauties like Dita von Teese or Rose McGowan have their admirers today. Fritz Willlis (1907-1979) was one of the great pin-up artists. He ɱanaged to create his own distinctive approach working in a recognizable pin-up ɱanner.

Fig. 1. Ice Follies Souvenir Program Cover, 1963 (blogspot.com)

Fig. 2. Gibson Girl (Wikipedia.org)

Fig. 3. Left: Fritz Willis (blogspot.com); Right: Utamaro

100 Girls With The One Face

Willis was born in Oklahoma City and studied at the Vesper George Art School in Boston. Then he moved to Hollywood to work for Warner Brothers as a production designer. Willis’ career as a pin-up artist began in 1946 when Esquire announced a new feature entitled the Esquire Gallery of Glamour and invited Willis to make the first illustration. Since that tι̇ɱe, Willis had been contributing to Esquire. He produced illustrations for pin-up calendars together with Ben-Hur Baz, Joe De Mers, and J. Frederick Smith. In the works of Willis, there are more nudity and intι̇ɱacy than in traditional pin-up pictures.

Pin-Up Copulation

While usually pin-up girls are depicted in awkward situations with this ‘oops!’ expression on their doll faces (e. g., when the wind lifts their skirts), Willis portrays them in bedrooms or the setting of his studio. Girls are not embarrassed but relaxed. Interestingly, ɱany of them have the face of Willis’ wife, Pat. The artist’s oeuvre The Afternoon Delight (which probably is a sequel of the sketch Reclining Nude Eating Grapes) is a rare example of pin-up copulation that can be classified as “pin-up shunga

What is Shunga? Uncover the captivating world of this ancient Japanese erotic art form at ShungaGallery.com. Explore the history, allure, and secrets of Shunga in its most intriguing form.

.” The illustration for October in the Esquire calendar for 1948 (Floral Offering) depicts not a girl’s front side, but her naked back, which slightly reminds us of shunga again as these body parts were regarded as sexually attractive in Japan, so geishas and courtesans exposed their necks.

Fig. 4. Esquire calendar for 1948, October (codex99.com)

Fig. 5. Afternoon Delight (blogspot.com)

Fig. 6. Reclining Nude Eating Grapes (nevsepic.com.ua)

Fig. 7. Calendar for October 1965 (nevsepic.com.ua)

Pygmalion Effect

The depictions of a reclining nude in the artist’s studio contain interesting, intentional or unintentional, recursion: the nude beauty looks at the sketch while being a sketch herself. Even the studio background remains unfinished. Willis often portrays his beauties juxtaposing them to the pencil drawings, which resembles Lovelies

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portfolio by Ferrier and Roye. He also depicts a bowl with brushes standing next to nudes

Helmut Newton (1920-2004) was a Gerɱan-Australian photographer whose works appeared in lots of fashion magazines, like Vogue , French Vogue , Marie-Claire , Elle , and Playboy . Newton made numerous nude photographs..

, so art and reality interlace inside the picture. Pencil contours and colorful body curves produce a contrast that attracts our attention.

Face of His Wife

Pin-up beauties seem to step out of their drawn surrounding. They seem to come alive like Galatea, the sculpture of ancient artist Pygmalion. According to the myth, Pygmalion, who remained celibate to devote himself to sculpting, fell in love with his creation. He was scared of his desire and prayed to Aphrodite to give him a spouse as beautiful as his statue. Aphrodite brought the sculpture to life, and Pygmalion married her. The story turns out to be even funnier in the case of Willis if we keep in mind that ɱany Willis girls have the face of his wife.