To start off my research into Pin-Up Girls, I researched into the history of Pin-Up Girls, how they originated and the changes they have undergone from their origin to today. I found several different websites which include a history of Pin-Up Girls, so I can compare the accounts and create my own history of Pin-Up girls using the information from several different sources.
DEFINE: PIN-UP GIRL
A pin-up girl, also known as a pin-up model, is a model whose mass-produced pictures see wide appeal as popular culture. Pin-ups are intended for informal display, e.g. meant to be "pinned-up" on a wall.Pin-up girls may be glamour models, fashion models, or actresses.
DEFINE: ROCKABILLY
A type of popular music, originating in the south-eastern US in the 1950s, combining elements of rock and roll and country music.
Pin-Up Girl history
The history of the pin up girl - http://aevans.hubpages.com/hub/History-Of-The-Pin-Up-Girl
Pin up girls originated in the 1890's, however they only really became popular in the 1930's. Famous pin up girls such as Betty Grable and Carole Lombard featured on calendars and advertisements that were printed and sent out to American soldiers in WW2, to give them hope, and remind them of their family and loved ones back home. Burlesque actresses using pin up advertisements on their post cards to gain popularity with fans. They would often leave business cards adorned with pin up girls lying around in random places waiting to be picked up by a random stranger whose eye they happen to catch.
From the mid 19th century into the 20th century women were often drawn doing ordinary tasks. Calendars were created with eroticism, letting artists use their imagination with the kind of images they produce, which would be a lot harder to do with a photograph, which led to the traditional pin up girl.
Women were painted on calendars and in magazines and as part of advertisements, which was every mans dream. Esquire magazine features the Vargas girls, and was also famous for featuring the Gibson girls as well.
During WW2, pin up girls became famous for dressing up in military uniforms and drawn in sensual positions. The Vergas girls were so popular during WW2 that Esquire sent 9 million copies full of pin up girls without advertisements for American troops both oversees and at home, free of charge.
Famous Illustrators such as Rolf Armstrong and Gillette Elvgren created accurate illustrations of pin up girls for matchbooks, advertisements, magazines covers and calendars.
The pin up girl grew in popularity in the 1950's, with actresses becoming pin up stars, mostly before the film even came to screen. Magazines started including the artists who have drawn these pin up girls, making the pin up even more well known.
In the 1960's the pin up girl transformed into something that was more sexual and inappropriate due to the 'free love' way of thinking that was going on, exploiting beauty into nudity, which people became more fascinated in, and thus the pin up girl lost it's true, innocent meaning.
Today the pin up girl is nothing like the original, and is in fact almost extinct. You will find it hard to find an artist who can draw a pin up girl like Gillette Elvgren for example, with most pin up girls produced using technology.
started becoming popular in the 20th century, although began in 1890's. Is a result of women being forced to repress their freedom of expression. pin-up changed the view on women expressing themselves, which has resulted in women today being able to wear clothing they are comfortable in, and not being restricted to strict rules and regulations on what is and isn't suitable for them to wear, in public and at home. A pin-up is not a sex symbol, but a strong feminism act of women fighting against the norm of women's restrictions in a patriarchal world.
Pin-up girls originated in France in the 1890's. Jules Cheret, a Parisian artist, started the craze by exhibiting young and voluptuous women in posters and magazines.
The key role of the pin-up in America during WW2 was to have something for the soldiers to hope for whilst they were fighting, keeping up their morale and to stop them thinking about the high possibility of them dying. Betty Grable and Rita Hayworth fronted this idea of the pin-up giving soldiers hope. Betty Grable won the title of "most popular pin up of WW2". Gillette Elvgren, who produced over 500 paintings of pin ups during this period, won the title as "best pin up artist". Alberto Vergas, a renowned poser artist, also had a regular feature of Vergas Girls in Esquire magazine. Each issue included paintings of pin up girls in new costumes with new themes, and after the war Christian Dior included pin-ups in print advertisements, something that had never been done before, which led to the pin up girl suddenly becoming seen everywhere. A popular form of distributing the pin-up was calendars, which often featured "good girl" or"wholesome" pin up girls, of which were distributed by growing American businesses.
Marilyn Monroe is one of the most famous pin up girls of all time, and in 1949 photographer Tom Kelly paid her $50 (which was a lot of money at the time) to pose naked on a red velvet background. Playboy magazine later bought the rights to publish one of Monroe's calendar shots called "Golden Dreams", which was the centerfold of Playboy's first issue and made a massive impact on many American's who saw the photograph. Playboy went on to become one of the liberalising elements of the sexual revolution. Marilyn Monroe had the limelight in America for pin up girls, however there were also many other pin-up girls such as Bettie Page, Bridgette Bardot, Sophia Loren, Jayne Mansfield, and Lili St.Claire, all of whom had a massive impact on pin-up history.
Over 100 years, pin-ups have made a massive impact on contemporary art and fashion. The pin-up was most popular in WW2, however it still shines through today, mainly in lingerie, and has been enhanced through time. The pin-up era in growing more and more nowadays, with women wanting to flaunt their natural curves rather than being stick thin. Women are getting more and more proud of their womanly figures.
In the early 20th century, at the beginning of the pin-up era, sexuality was both scrutinised and suppressed, with a woman who showed her bare ankle being considered risque, and the word sex not even being used publicly. The need for images of an erotic style was overcome, with such images being portrayed as a form of art. Because such images were considered an art form, they were deemed acceptable in society, and this led to the development of the pin up girl, from such illustrations, drawings and paintings, that were of the style of stripping burlesque women.
Magazines such as "The Police Gazette" illustrated scenes of murder portraying the leading women in various stages of nudity, which was considered acceptable as it was newsworthy. These ideas of what is and isn't acceptable, in my view, is a bit mixed up, and it makes no sense to me why an image of a half naked woman is acceptable because it is "newsworthy", yet a woman showing her ankle is real life is considered risque.
In the 1920's women started to rebel against previous Victoria notions of respectability, with energetic dancing and shorter skirts that showed more leg than has even been accepted. It was during this time that underground "pulp" detective magazines used illustrations of nude women in bondage to illustrate their stories of murder and kidnapping. During this time a whole new range of nudist publications were created, using sex, nudity and humour to portray their stories and jokes. It was from such publications that the Pin-Up started to evolve in the 1930's.
George Petty and Alberto Vergas painted pin-up girls on calendars, that were soon seen everywhere around America in particular. Esquire magazine started during this period, and very soon it started being full of paintings and illustrations of many different pin up girls by several different artists.
During WW2 pin up art really took over and exploded in popularity. Almost all the soldiers had some sort of pin up painting, illustration or photograph hidden away somewhere that served as a reminder of the people they loved back home, giving the soldiers faith and hope. Pin up girls were also painted onto the sides of aircraft vehicles, wishing them a safe flight and journey on their missions.
Artists such as Gillette Elvgren emerged as failing magazines and publishers tried to win back the public with extreme risque imagery. By this time the more original artwork had become extremely sought after, and this was when people started to realise that pin-up artwork had gained it's place in the art world.
In the 1950's and 60's the pin-up started to be produced less so in paintings and more so in photography. Magazines such as Playboy teamed pin up photography with well-written lifestyle articles, which proved a massive success. These type of magazines took over, and destroyed any kind of repression that was left in the public, in only a few years. During this time period models started changing and adapting the traditional pin up into different genres such as bondage and fetish, the most famous being the partnership between Bettie Page and Irving Claws. Although this new style of pin up is a lot darker than the original style, it is still done in a fun, teasing and innocent way, that which is typical of the traditional pin up. During the 1960's magazines such as Playboy circulated a massive area, all the while moving pin up style imagery into mainstream America.
By the 1970's photography had pretty much taken over from illustration in the way pin-ups were portrayed, and many of the once popular artists retired. With the development of the video, the demand for more graphic and lewd imagery, depicting all manner of sex acts, grew massively, and the once innocent pin up girl became lost.
However during the 1980's a new artist emerged, Dave Stevens, which kept the image of the traditional pin up alive, especially with the invention of the Internet in the 1990's, which showed that the interest in traditional pin up style women was still very much there, just hidden behind this more porn star style image. In the past few years there has been a massive increased in the popularity of the traditional pinup girl, from which many models have appeared, looking like the traditional pin up girl. Although many of these models do cross over into several different styles, their base style is from the traditional pin up girl era.
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