National Golf Day! Tee up with a Bolles Girl

 





To celebrate National Golf day we start out with another fine example of Bolles advertising work. Clearly the assignment called for realism and Bolles succeeded in subsuming his personal expressiveness to meet the dictates of the advertising editor. If you were to look for any giveaways this is a Bolles the most obvious would be the treatment of her hair. Below we see several other birdies in great position on the fairway.  Curiously Bolles was no golfer. His favored pole was for fishing.

1926







1929

 

 

1936



The Best from Bolles

I just finished reading some comments from an old post at the terrific Illustration Art blog managed by David Apatoff, who moonlights as a historian on both modern and historical illustration.  At some point during the discussion our man Bolles was brought up and unfortunately the comments by followers reverted to the standard criticisms I've heard many times before. To wit: he was just a cartoonist, he was derivative, his girls were doughy and devoid of bone structure (Driben yes, but this is emphatically NOT the recipe for the Bolles' girl!).  



Advertising art by Bolles, 1915

One of my goals for this blog has been to show through example that he was actually a far more complete and adaptable artist than the dusty little niche he has long been assigned. Granted, Bolles produced over 560 magazine covers of pretty girls by the time he quit the scene in 1943, a legacy hard to ignore, especially considering his output may have exceeded all other illustrators of his era with the exception of the amazingly prolific Harrison Fisher (thanks to Norm Platnick for the tallying!). Just a short journey through his oeuvre would reveal not a single Bolles style, but a succession of Bolles girls who evolved to match the fashions of the times.  That's another strength of Bolles which is ignored, his girls were far and away the best dressed of any pinup artist (ok, the scarcity of clothes on modern pinups does put artists at a disadvantage). 



Even more revealing is Bolles' largely unknown career as a commercial illustrator outside of the magazine industry. His early work included pen and ink illustration but he soon specialized in color, producing hundreds of illustrations for campaigns ranging from cigarettes to ocean liners. He even did a few film star portraits for the more mainstream movie mags and in the late 1920s, as well as create a series of posters for movie studios.  Clearly, Bolles was an artist comfortable with a variety of media who could adapt (or mask) his style depending on the needs of the client.  He was sought out by advertisers not only because of ability at drafting pretty girls during a period when every able illustrator was perfecting their own, but also because of his more general skills in composition and as a draftsman.



Portrait of Bolles Great-granddaughter, Joanna, circa 1960

The final examples I want to share come from Bolles personal work.  It is a surprising fact that many commercial illustrators did not paint for recreation, but for many reasons Bolles was compelled to. He wrote of spending weeks or months on a single painting, reworking it over and over and experimenting with different approaches until he was satisfied.  He actually painted two portraits of his great-granddaughter Joanna and this only after going through multiple sketches.  Snowscapes were a personal favorite of Bolles, a theme which he managed to integrate into his commercial work as well. 

Tappan Zee river, circa unknown

No one would suggest that Bolles belongs along side the superstars of the Golden Age; the likes of Rockwell, Leyendecker or Cornwell.  Bolles himself would resist that. But he certainly deserves more than to be cast as an extra. His pinup work was created over a half century ago yet it remains fresh and carries a currency that resonates to fans young and old. 


Given this, it's only fair that the Bolles girl has the last say on this matter. 

Happy Valentine's Day. Thanks for the candy!

Enoch Bolles would like to alert you that January 11 is Cigarettes are Hazardous to your Health Day

Has any other pinup artist embraced the cigarette as much as Bolles?  He used it as a prop in his second magazine cover, published by Judge way back in 1914, over than a decade before any cigarette company dared show a woman smoking in a magazine ad.  Bolles himself didn't smoke but he did advertising art for cigar and cigarette companies and was so particular about how his girls wielded their smokes that he once had is son-in-law sit for him so he could get it just right for a Film Fun cover.  George Petty made a lot more money than Bolles putting his girls in cigarette ads but you'll never find a single one of them taking a puff, Petty didn't think it was lady-like.  What a hypocrite! 

 

Happy New Year!!

Our fun loving covergirl is the actress, Sally O'Neil. She'd been in the movies since the mid 20's but at the time this cover appeared in 1930 her film career was nearing its end. Apparently, Sally had a strong Jersey twang that didn't suit her well with the advent of the talkies. The pronouncement that the cover was "specially posed" was a fabrication, as was a painfully contrived interview with her printed in this issue. There was little chance a famous star, or even a Hollywood hopeful, would tromp up two stories to Bolles' studio located in the midst of the magazine publishing district in New York.  Bolles instead relied on stock studio photos to complete this cover as well as others that the editors of Film Fun had been occasionally experimenting with since 1928 (However, Enoch's daughter once told me that Lupe Velez actually did sit for her cover, which makes sense as it is far and away the best of the series).  

 

Bolles could do fine likenesses and completed three standard portrait covers for a couple other movies magazines but they were time consuming, and there were plenty of other illustrators who did nothing but specialize in portrait covers for the likes of Photoplay and its competitors.  And frankly, Bolles' portrait covers don't have that spark his original creations do. I think the editors of Film Fun came to realize this as well and soon after this cover, ended the experiment. Thankfully!

A reminder from Enoch Bolles that December 26th is Boxing Day

Saving Beauty

This image popped out of my mental archives the instant I eyed a New York Times article about a group of women training to become life guards at Manhattan beach, circa 1940.  Apparently it came to light when someone saw the newsreel the Prelinger archives and reposted it on Youtube.   As you can see, our Bolles girl is ready for some diversion, if not getting her hair wet.  I think you'll agree that this cover is a great composition, and I've long wondered why Bolles knocked himself out on it.  The editors at Judge were notorious for stiffing their writers and artists on payday, and the its publisher, Leslie-Judge had only recently come out of bankruptcy (and this not the first time).   Bolles hadn't done a cover for Judge in over two years.  He didn't need the work or the hassle.  There was plenty enough to keep him busy with Film Fun, along with other magazine covers and advertising work.  The likely explanation for his effort became apparent a couple years back when a scan of a Trade magazine appeared on the terrific site Magazinart, managed by Michael Ward.  It may well be a rare example of Bolles repurposing an advertising assignment, a strategy other illustrators had perfected years before. This cover would be Bolles' last for Judge, and it appeared at the very time that Theodor Geisel  was just hired on staff.  Poor Dr. Suess, the finances deteriorated at Judge had deteriorated to the point to which the newly married Suess (he moved up his wedding date after getting hired) not only got his salary chopped, but soon was paid with vouchers which he could remit for services and products for the few companies that were foolish enough to advertise in Judge (Geisel was happy about the free hotel rooms).  Bolles was not only done with Judge but he soon stopped doing work for Snappy Stories.  In an act of desperation, Leslie-Judge had sold off the rights of Film Fun, the only title that consistently made them money, to Delacorte press.  They made a fortune off it.

 

And of course Bolles would stay on with the magazine until it folded 15 years later.  He clearly was pleased with the cover, enough so that he revived it it a decade later for the smoosh pulp, Gay Parisienne.  He left the color scheme unchanged, if not the swim suit.  It was one among a number of other compositions that Bolles recycled and updated, the connections a private visual joke. going unnoticed. and until today I don't think the connection between the covers had ever been made. Thanks to my Bolles pal, Beau for sharing this previously unknown cover.  Be sure to check out his fabulous site on pulps and historical magazines at: Darwination.