It's a Bear Out There!

With all the bad weather circulating around the globe it would seem only fair to recalibrate the temperature of this blog to match climatic conditions. And in keeping with the recent informal theme of Bolles girl astride various members of the Wild Kingdom here we feature one of the two known polar bear covers that Bolles completed, this one for a 1933 issue of Film Fun. Notice the long snout on our bear which is accurate and particular to the polar bear. Bolles worked hard on details like this that were clearly not a priority for subscribers to Film Fun. Notice also that the bear is not in the least sharing the girl's enthusiasm. But when the girl's mode of transportation is human, there's a remarkable adjustment in attitude.

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(Thanks Gary, for the nice scan of this cover!)

Back to the Beach

It was just a few posts ago where I was speculating about the origin of the lovely lady adorning the cover of a 1941 issue of Young's Magazine. Well since then I was doing some "house cleaning" and what did I come across but a clipped cover from a 1935 issue of Breezy Stories, featuring our girl in her original outfit and as you've undoubtedly noticed, a different beach companion. Not that I can tell whether it's a Loggerhead or Hawksbill but Bolles did use the Girl on a Turtle theme for at least one other cover (a 1937 issue of Gay Parisienne).

Aside from the turtle the cover is notable for the signature, added by the engraver. Several other covers of Breezy Stories, all from 1935 have the added signature as well as a cover art credit for Bolles on the title page, which an acknowledgement even Film Fun never afforded Bolles. This version of the cover was used again as a closeup in a 1938 issue of Breezy. I'm sure Bolles didn't get a dime extra for it and I doubt whether he got anything for the remake either. By 1940 Painter Publications was using recycled Bolles' covers for virtually every issue of Young's Magazine. The puzzle is why is this one different, and in such a special way.

More Smilby on Bolles

During my visit with Francis "Smilby" Smith, I got to pore over his wonderful collection of illustrated books and rare periodicals. It was especially exciting to hold magazines in my hands I had seen only in books or as scans off the web. But there was one issue in particular I was disappointed to have missed...until I took a trip to the loo, and there she was hanging on the wall, staring right back at me with those piercing eyes. The situation was not without some irony. Francis was a staff artist for Playboy and one of his perks was a free lifetime subscription. There were decades of them stacked upstairs. Yet there wasn't a lone issue of Playboy to be found in his bathroom (and no, I wasn't looking). Francis was also a personal friend of Alberto Vargas, but it wasn't one of his girls who was confronting me. It was a Bolles girl and it was that one. The one who moved beyond the merely provocative and who had ventured deep into the territory of transgressivness. In her time she would be labeled as nothing short of pornographic; the argument would still be made by some yet today. Of course none of this was lost on Francis and here's what he had to say about her in Stolen Sweets:
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"An exceptionally fine but curiously disturbing image that, facially at least, has more than a touch of Lolita about it. The conflicting images--modesty and a steady open gaze--combine with the setting--a sense of a forbidden something suddenly illuminated from the depths of a cavern--to give this cover a strangely charged eroticism."

I must admit that when first coming across this cover in Francis' book some years ago, I was unsure whether Bolles had painted her or not. Aside from being unsigned and appearing on an obscure 'smoosh' mag, it just seemed to be to be too much in all aspects. Too nude, too young and even too painterly. There were of course, several signature statements that eventually gave Bolles up as her creator, but why he put so much into a painting that may have paid him as little as $60 and could have gotten him tossed into the slammer is an equation I still haven't worked out.

Happy Holidays!!

Thought I'd share my favorite Bolles Santa with you. The fact is, this is also my favorite Bolles advertising illustration. It's as if the art editor saw the comp for the ad and said, "I'll take it as is." Enjoy!

Bolles, according to Smilby

I'm continuing this modest tribute to the late Francis "Smilby" Smith with a brief except from his book, Stolen Sweets--The Cover Girls of Yesteryear: Their Elegance, Charm and Sex Appeal. Here's what he had to say about what many consider to be if not Bolles' best, certainly his most provocative magazine cover.

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One of the finest of American covers. A superb conception--the body filling the space both ingeniously and erotically, with the satiny shine of the abbreviated lingerie emphasizing everything it was supposed to conceal. The textured backcloth and Bakelite radio are vital elements in the composition.

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The book was published in 1981 and has been long out of print, though copies occasionally appear on eBay. By unnerving happenstance I got a copy that came in the mail just last week. Get one for yourself if you can. It is chock full of great images by Bolles and others with Smilby's wry and revealing commentary.

Francis "Smilby" Smith 1927-2009

I got some sad news this week. The cartoonist, writer, and collector extraordinaire, Francis Smith, who signed his work Smilby has passed away I first got to know Francis about 10 years ago after I cold called him. He had written what many still consider the best book about the history of pinup and glamour art, Stolen Sweets and I had the audacity to phone in order to pester him about some of the illustrations in the book that were unattributed but which I was convinced were done by Enoch Bolles. Other sections of the book (one is included below) had nice things to say about Bolles so I was guessing he would be be sympathetic to my cause. Francis graciously heard me out and we ended up speaking for nearly a half hour. By the end of our conversation we had agreed that the illustrations were indeed by Bolles. I followed up with several other calls and Francis connected me to another mentor, Reid Austin, the art editor at Playboy who convinced Hugh Hefner to hire on Alberto Vargas. Reid who alas, passed away two years ago, eventually became Vargas' personal assistant and editor at Playboy was a good friend of Francis, who himself contributed cartoons for Playboy for many years. Our relationship progressed to the point to where seven years ago I made the trip to the English countryside to visit the 400 year old (give or take a century) cottage Francis shared with his lovely wife Pam, a talented artist in her own right. Francis, his health flagging and eyesight fading but undimmed in spirit, greeted me--ginger and rye in hand--in their lovely garden where we talked about many things, including pinup. Inside the cottage I pored over his amazing collection of vintage pulps, many of which were reproduced in Stolen Sweets, and rare illustrated books by Barbier--whom he especially admired--and others. The shelves were stacked floor to ceiling with thousands of old 78's all in their original brown liners. Francis had one of the largest collections of blues and gospel records in the world (many of which have been remastered in a series of CD's. I think Francis may have written the liner notes). I had a grand time and ended up staying an extra day, having missed the last train back to London. In the years since Francis' health continued to ebb but he was comfortable to the end, supported by Pam's unflagging devotion, amazing energy and occasional sips of good wine that Pam would slip him while the nurses weren't looking. Francis will be missed by many but his words, art and spirit live on.

A Hat Trick!

After the last two posts what choice did I have but to pore over my files for other examples of hats. And boy did I find one. Here we see yet another fine example, again from a 1941 issue of Young's. The scan is lousy, but in this case I do have a physical copy of the Breezy Stories where this image first appeared back in 1936. Unfortunately it is in utterly abysmal shape and my paltry photoshop skills were redlined just to get the image to where you see it. But even with these crummy reproductions it is evident that the printing quality of the Young's mag suffers terribly. If I'm lucky maybe one of these days I'll be lucky enough to get my hands on a clean copy so we can see what she looked like in all her "unenthumbered" glory.
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Contemplating our beached maiden one has to wonder why Bolles didn't get the opportunity to do work for the so-called slicks, or mainstream periodicals such as Liberty or SAT, both of which ran cheesecake covers. The easy answer is that Bolles girls were too hot. Try as he might (or perhaps he didn't) you couldn't hide that fact that the Bolles girl was not residing next door. Take a look at these side by side comparisons of work by Bolles and Liberty covers dealing with similar topics and published within months of each other.The Liberty covers smack with nostalgia and more than a bit of kitsch, whereas the Bolles girls have not lost any of the frisson that got him into trouble 75 years ago. And therein lies the problem. Bolles was just too successful for his own good.