Enoch Bolles has teed up for Women's Golf Day

After a hiatus our man Bolles is back on the course and teeing up for today's official celebration of Women's Golf Day. But don't be mistaken, this 1936 cover of Spicy Stories is nowhere near the first time a Bolles girl showed up on the fairway. 

The earliest example appeared in 1925 on the cover of Laughter, a short-lived humor rag very much along the lines of Judge, the magazine where Bolles began his career and was still doing the occasional cover for. His covers for Laughter represent a real departure, not thematically but because of the total absence of white backgrounds. Instead Bolles uncharacteristically turned to saturated primaries and deep hues that completely filled the backgrounds.  

The final example for today appeared a year earlier, not on a magazine but from what was then called a Street car card. During this time Bolles was not only churning out covers for several monthly and bi-monthly periodicals but also painting scores of ads that were slotted in the space above windows in trolleys and busses. Many of these images were dramatically rescaled for other uses from blotters to billboards. Bolles plays it straight with this image but he played with a variety of looks and other examples toe closer to the style of the Laughter cover.    

But despite these and other examples, Bolles never once set foot on a golf course.