The pin-up girl is a very particular type of woman. She’s an
All-American super babe, known for dressing up — and sometimes spilling
out — but never enough to warrant a censor bar. She’s flirtatious yet
innocent, erotic but not sexual, mischievous and still sweet.
“Her sexiness is natural and uncontrived, and her exposure is always accidental,” Dian Hanson, author of The Art of the Pin-Up
explained to The Huffington Post. “A fishhook catches her bikini top,
an outboard motor shreds her skirt, a spunky puppy trips her up or the
ever-present playful breeze lifts her hem, revealing stocking tops and
garter straps, but never the whole enchilada.”
Gil Elvgren, Low Down Feelings, Oil on Canvas
The
history of the pin-up girl stems back to the time of World War I, when
President Woodrow Wilson formed the Division of Pictorial Publicity to
create visual stimuli to persuade men to join the war effort. Turned out
pin-up girls were quite convincing. It wasn’t long before the wavy
haired, rosy cheeked, buxom women were popping up on calendars,
advertisements and magazine covers all over the country.
The
pin-up girl’s popularity continued to rise throughout World War II,
when soldiers abroad would hang up an image of a pretty lady to remind
them of what they were fighting for. Yet some enthusiasts claim the
origins of the pin-up extend even further back, debatably to the
invention of the bicycle in the early 1800s. For practical reasons,
women began sporting pants for the first time soon after, drawing
attention to legs like never before and making mainstream women’s
fashion at once more masculine and more erotic.
To
suffragists, the bike was the “freedom machine,” releasing women of
their ties to a male escort. To the male gaze, the mode of
transportation was a prop upon which models sat, prompting a whole new
genre of painted and illustrated muses.
Alberto Vargas, Brunette with Blue Flowers, Watercolor, crayon & graphite on paper
The
mythic history of the pin-up is certainly filled with contradictions.
On the one hand, objectifying scantily clad women for male pleasure is
hardly revolutionary. (Cue hundreds of years of art history.) And yet
the pin-up movement has an arguably feminist angle
as well, emboldening women with a distinct sense of sexuality, agency
and liberation from norms. “We find that the pin-up provided a model
through which women could construct themselves as icons of contemporary
womanhood,” art history professor Maria Elena Buszek writes.
“Through the genre, women were representing themselves as at once both
conventionally feminine and transgressively aware of her own power and
potential for agency on levels both personal and political.”
Gallerist
Louis Meisel has had a soft spot for the kitsch subculture since
childhood, growing up to become the leading dealer and collector of
original pin-up artworks. His stash includes oil paintings, watercolors
and pastels, each managing to capture the softness of a beautiful
woman’s face. Some are classic depictions of the girl next door, while
others, depicting eroticized visions by the sea or floating in mid-air,
seem almost surreal. His works are currently on view at his gallery, in
an appropriately named exhibition, “The Great American Pin-Up Girl
Returns.”
it's dreadful woman hhh
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