Doubling up: Wear Red & Wave to your Neighbor Days

Bolles once wrote: "printers love any color, as long as it's red,"  and it's a perspective he took to heart.  Red is a cardinal theme on his covers. Not only was the Bolles girl's wardrobe flush with scarlet, but more often than not she sported red locks.

So I had a problem...that being which single issue to pluck from a field of hundreds blooming red from rose to poppy.  It wasn't long before I was getting a bit flush from sampling all that burgundy, claret and rosé.  

But I kept coming back to one particular image and I think out of all this cover from 1935 burns brightest. Enoch probably had to empty a couple tubes of Cadmium red on the canvas (though the color looks a bit more like Naphthol) to finish the dress but the expense was well worth it. Any Hollywood starlet would be thrilled to wear it on the red carpet. 

But look closer, there more going on here.  Notice all those strong diagonals moving through the composition in both directions.  The contrast provided by the piano adds a lot. The little bits Enoch lets peek through from behind the girl reinforce the outline and punch up the depth, projecting the girl toward us. Smart move by the art editor to stick with red for the logo. 

And of course you can't have a Bolles girl without those hand flourishes.  Maybe she's about to add some left hand rhythm but I prefer to think she's beckoning an admirer. After all it's also wave to your neighbor day.