Bikini Day was yesterday

I'm not going to let another year pass before I have the excuse to celebrate Bikini day with a great Bolles painting, this one a photo of the original work that appeared on the cover of the December 1937 issue of Spicy Stories.  This image is not from the Heritage auction where the painting sold a year or so ago but by a photographer I'd hired nearly 10 years back, long before the painting had be publicly 'outed'.  Several other of my 'secret' finds have have ended up at auction but I still have at least 30 paintings of covers that have not seen the light of day, and which I hope to include in the Bolles book I've written and am still trying to get published.  

More about that later. For now lets enjoy one of Enoch's most inventive take on what years later would be recognized as a bikini. If you are wondering what's with the white aura surrounding our lovely Bolles girl, it's simply a border of titanium white, enough to help the printer but also no more than necessary.  This was a cost saving measure employed by the frugal Bolles which many other cover artists used when the composition was going to be printed against a pure white background.  I've seen several Bolles paintings for sale at auctions where at some point along the way the raw canvas was filled in to match.  Too bad in my mind as I rather see the hand of Bolles at work. Enjoy!