Gil Elvgren PDF Print E-mail
Written by Ibnu Pramudya   
Monday, 30 November 2009 12:02

Gil Elvgren: All His Glamorous American Pin-Ups (Taschen 25th Anniversary Special Editions)

Gil Elvgren: All His Glamorous American Pin-Ups (Taschen 25th Anniversary Special Editions)

Post-depression America was in desperate need of a defining iconography that would lift it out of the black and white doldrums, and it came in theform of Gil Elvgren's Technicolor fantasies of the American dream. His technique-which earned him a reputation as "The Norman Rockwell of cheesecake"-involved photographing models and then painting them into gorgeous hyper-reality, with longer legs, more flamboyant hair and gravity-defying busts, and in the process making them the perfect moral-boosting eye-candy for every homesick private.
If I was to choose a coffee table book of cheesecake and magically, could live on an island surrounded by the models in that book, I'd have to pass up Sorayama, Olivia, and Vargas, and go for Gil Elvgren, the collection being this 200+ page work that covers Elvgren's work from the 1930's to the 1970's.

The girls in Elvgren's paintings not only come alive, but seem more warm and human, innocent with a twinge of spice. So this is what they meant by "sugar, spice, and everything nice." Maybe because most of them are smiling, with those pearly whites showing. I could spend hours looking through those pages, forming stories around the paintings.

Many look like celebrities. In "Let's Go (1957)," the blonde getting out of a white car looks a lot like Marilyn Monroe. The girl in "True To You (Sitting Pretty) (1950)" also resembles Marilyn but with brown hair. And the honey in "Evening Out (1969)" reminds me of Geri Halliwell.

Okay, so many of the drawings can be construed as sexist. The particular theme on that being girls who get their skirt lifted up by well handles, pipes, fence rails, ladders, and elevator doors, revealing two very shapely legs.

Equally interesting are paintings that were repaints of earlier work. "In For A Tanning" featured a sitting nude girl holding her bikini with a black dog to her side. "Dumb Pluck" featured the girl in the same pose, except she was wearing a candy-cane striped bathing suit and holding a shovel, the dog still on her left.

Some were risque even for their time and the more amusing ones are beach shots where the girls get into distress, such as having their beachware stolen by a dachsund (Taking Ways, 1950) And his nudes were never full frontal, only seen from the rear or side, the sole exception being "Harem," an undated painting of an innocent maiden captured by Arabs.

It's when looking at his work during the 1960's and 1970's, that yes, the models have changed with the times and despite having Elvgren's signature style, their hairstyle are with their times.
Other notes: the paintings are clearly better than the real-live model replications hands and legs down.

So, my favorites? That's a difficult one, as the models are oh so cute, but I'd have to settle for "Well Picked," of a girl in yellow dress wading in a pool and picking up a lily flower, "Golden Beauty," of a Diana Dors-lookalike, "Surprise Package," where the girl wrapping the X-mas present is clearly the title object, and "Lazy Days," of the girl lying leisurely on the summer grass.

Proof that too much of a good thing is better, and that too much cheesecake can be good for one and not be fattening. And with all apologies to the Beach Boys, "I wish they all could be Gil Elvgren girls!"
 

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