Yet Another Swipe

Today's entry features perhaps Enoch's best cover for Judge, the magazine that launched his career as a cover artist back a decade earlier in 1914. The theme of dancers doing the Can-Can brings to mind cover art to French magazines of the time such as La Vie Parisienne and Le Sourire which featured the works of talented artists who specialized in the female form, particularly George Barbier, Chéri Herouard, Georges Léonnec. I'm not alone in wondering if our man Enoch may have been influenced by their creations, particularly covers such as this where his girls look like they could be kicking up their heels in the Moulin Rouge. Bolles produced other examples in the 1920s that seemed to have a bit of French flair to them.

I've long kept an eye out for any whiff of a connection, be it a hint of inspiration or wholesale imitation. And finally, I've uncovered the smoking gun, but it was pointed in the wrong direction. It turns out it wasn't Bolles who was being influenced. This double truck illustration appeared in Le Sourier five years after Bolles painted his dance line. The poses of the first four girls on the left match up closely with the Judge ' cover, and the differences are most evident in their faces and headdresses. The remainder of the lineup is a variation on a single pose. So while clearly not an exact duplicate, the work certainly qualifies as a serious swipe.

 

     

Bolles' influence on American pinup illustrators has been well documented, the surprise is that he also had an impact on the French school, especially given the ephemeral nature of periodicals like Judge. The covers of  unsold magazines were typically torn off by distributors, and the daughter of one of his Enoch's art editors once told me that he would home stacks of magazines to burn in their fireplace. It makes one wonder how any copies ever made it across the pond.