Pin-up style and its artists

Gil Elvgren	Alberto Vargas	Edward Runci	George Petty	Bradshaw Crandell	Donald Rust
Fritz Willis	George Petty	Walt Otto	Baron Von Lind	Pearl Frush	Coby Whitmore
William Medcalf	Lou Shabner	Fiona Stephenson	Peter Driben	Mel Ramos

Pin-Up style was developed in the late 19^th century as an advertising campaign for different companies, promoting the performers and actresses or as an illustration to various magazines, theater premiers, books, etc.

The main subject matter in this style has always be voluptuous attractive women, often pained nude or half nude. These ladies were called pin-up girls/model, which basically meant “pinned-up” on the wall. Especially the movement got its name because the pictures were most of the time appear on calendars.

The posters with famous actors that were prompting their movie or theater play, the commercial of various goods or the magazine cover required the painters that could capture the spirit of these times.

Interesting fact is that before the WWII the images were more focused on the female beauty, but during the war the topic of the posters or magazine covers shifted to the seductive and sexually explicit images of women. That was the way the standards of female beauty have been set in the society.

Now the pin-up images are acceptable by society as a part of the art history, but at that times women against the usage of the female sexuality in a commercial purpose.