Pin-up Girl Illustrations

Pin-up Girls ^(1920s-90s)

Pin-ups were fashion models, glamour models or actresses whose erotic photographs were used as pull-out pages in magazines or calendars to 'pin up' on bedroom walls. The pin-up era was solely during the 40s-50s, where the models became major sex symbols and often had their photos illustrated and mass-produced.
One of the more notable pin-up girls is Betty Grable, whose pictures were pinned to WW2 soldiers' lockers!
Pin-up artists would be commissioned for magazines such as Esquire and Playboy to illustrate saucy girls in provocative poses, often playfully dressed in WW2 attire, underwear or swimwear. Such artists were Alberto Vargas, Al Moore, Earle K. Bergey and Olivia De Baradinis (who is one of the more recent pin-up artists).
Pin-up art became increasingly popular as artistic license gave illustrators plenty of freedom to draw girls in many differents ways, as opposed to the static, posed photographs of actresses and models previously.

Al Moore

 Al Moore was commissioned to replace Alberto Vargas' pin-up artwork for 1948's Esquire magazine. He also illustrated the entire 1948 and 1949 calendars himself, his work gathering a well-known reputation as 'the Esquire girl'.
I find the girls he illustrated are undeliberately sexy. They may be wearing skimpy outfits or underwear but their poses are quite normal and standard, with the exception of a few. The images above only feature the girls facing away, wearing a knitted jumper and lying on her belly! Yet they can still be considered erotic from how fitted their clothes are or how shapely their bodies are and how beautiful their faces are illustrated.

Alberto Vargas

 Alberto Vargas' work is not too dissimilar to Al Moore's. I find Vargas' work is more sensual and more photo-realistic. The colours are paler and lighter, unlike Moore's muddy, gharish colours. However, it's unclear why Moore would be commissioned to replace Vargas when Vargas' work was doing so well already and was pretty much the same style and look!

Olivia De Beredinis

Olivia De Beredinis' work gets a lot more sexual and erotic, borderline pornographic, than these examples above! She's clearly influenced by the famous old pin-up artists but has drawn modern models and actresses as well as making them naughtier than an artist would traditionally.