HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Model Behavior

Over a thousand artist's models are currently at work in New York city.  Demand is so high that hourly rates for those with experience have risen to 50-75 cents an hour, with the most accomplished pulling in up to $25 a week. Modeling in the nude, which was the common practice a decade earlier has declined and many artists now maintain their own wardrobes. It's the year 1894.

The great C.D. Gibson has himself amassed a collection of 200 dresses.  Recently he was the victim of a sting, having hired a woman "posing" as a model only to learn she was planted by a newspaper writer working on an exposé about the corrupting relationship between artists and their models. A paragon of Victorian virtue, Gibson was not in the least tempted.  Moreover, he was soon in on the scam as the model could barely hold a pose, the rule being 40 minutes of work followed by a 20 minute break.  Like other famous illustrators Gibson had no end of woman begging to pose for him, but as he glibly noted, "models are not as plentiful as cranberries."  Harrison Fisher lamented: "So many pretty and attractive girls come to my studio to ask for posing that I hardly know what to do."   Gibson had a lot of other curious things to say about models. Here's another as quoted in a New York times feature about modeling published at the dawn of the previous century:  "The men who harness women up with dogs will not advance much in their art; the men who place them where they rightfully below will really progress.  It's all in the conception."  Heavy stuff.

Indeed it was impossible to be a commercial illustrator and be unaware of how the artist-model relationship served as a cultural touchstone for the age-old struggle between the sexes, that battle being in the midst of a disorienting reorientation.  The model also served, regrettably as a proxy for expressing cultural prejudice and even racial jingoism.  To wit:  “The best class of models in the world are the American girls.  The models abroad are cheaper, but they cannot be compared with our girls here, who are so bright and interesting.  Above all they are clean, which is almost an unheard-of quality among models on the other side.”  But artists weren't always so keen on the U.S. model: “What a nice class of girls pose nowadays,” gushed, Edwin H. Blashfield.  “Why when I was a young man the best models we could find were newsgirls, scrub girls, and well--, just the most commonplace, ignorant women.” 




Any commercial illustrator who specialized in pretty girls couldn't help but do their own take on the model-artist relationship. The example above by our man Bolles has to rank among the best of any commercial artist, it's fraught with tension both erotic and domestic. It's also a rare surviving example of a detailed comp (recently sold at  Heritage auctions) for a magazine cover from 1925 during his high deco period, it really shows to good effect Bolles' chops with watercolor.  Comparing the sketch with the actual cover provides some interesting insights into Bolles method, and very likely the publisher's reticence over such a blatant display of skin.  The most obvious alteration is the addition of covering on the model, very likely a concession to the art editor, but then Bolles subtly keeps the story line intact with the addition of the nude canvas.  To our right is a Pep Stories cover from five years later.  Until posting these images together it never occurred to me they had anything in common beyond the same theme. But not only does the girl on the Pep cover look to be the spitting image of the Snappy model, Bolles also reused the painting (albeit with the addition of a bit of clothing) as well as the pallette.  This must have been a private amusement for Bolles as I sincerely doubt that anybody made the connection between these two covers, until now.

I'll be continuing with the theme of artist's model in future posts.

Bolles Goes Goth!

This is one of the many items I planned on keeping in reserve for my book project, but when it showed up on the web I figured there was no point in keeping her in the closet (admittedly I did post a thumbnail of her a while back). The cover is from a 1943 issue of Breezy Stories. It showed up long after Bolles had stopped doing covers for the magazine and just about the very time he was getting out of the commercial art business for good.  Bolles had stopped contributing new Breezy covers back in 1938 and the publisher Phil Painter was enough of a cheapskate to be content with blowing up previous Bolles covers to use as portraits. Truth be told, many look terrific that way.  But by the early 40s he pretty much dispensed with that pretense and simply reused earlier Bolles Breezy covers with nary a change, except perhaps the even cheaper printing.  This example, however, is a bit of a poser as I have no record of it ever having previously appeared in print.  Maybe when Bolles brought it in to the office it was just a bit too much for the art director to digest.  After all, it would take another 75 years before the goth pinup scene really gained some traction. 

So consider this cover against the work of the other major pinup artists during of Bolles' era; Petty, Vargas, Elvgren, Moran, Bergey (ok, Armstrong).  All were producing great material but nothing at all even remotely like this.  Those pneumatic proportions wrapped in that outrageous costume (the gloves and a headband?!), the nuclear winter background, her power smile.  Yet, Bolles contributed as much as any artist to the look of the modern pinup, which has long since become a cliché. But he was such an original that his own work transcended it.  I'm grateful for this and am pleased that others feel this way too.

Coming up soon:  Part two of artists and their models

A Peek at Bolles at Work?

I recently picked up this copy of Stolen Sweets, then as now a hard to find title. Back in the day it took a lot of street leather to find a streetside magazine vendor who would have a copy or two stashed behind the counter.  If the vice cops got wind of it, the vendor would have been rewarded with a ride to the slammer in the back of a paddy wagon.  This may seem like a relatively sedate cover but don't let your 21st century sensibilities mislead you.  There's no ignoring that expanse of bare flesh, punctuated by an exposed navel.  Her happy countenance over that cool dessert is simply Bolles' way of playing with the potential censor.  And speaking of which, that sundae looks simply scrumptious. 

                                                                                                                     The cover was merely the first course (assuming that you started with dessert). The interior of the magazine was peppered with naughty drawings, spiced with girls peeled of heir nighties, and stuffed with overripe stories featuring endless variations of the male conquest-all equally unappetizing. Of all my attempts I've never been able to shovel through more than a couple paragraphs.  But there was something in this issue that made me do a double take. It was this photo.   Not the retouched flesh or the theme of artist's model, which in the 20s was as charged as the two poles of a battery, but had lost all its spark a decade later. No, it was the background that was beckoning to me. Look closely and you'll see a canvas of the very painting that appears on the cover. 

I told myself no, there was no way this was Bolles' studio.  But then I took a closer look at the easel and that really got my heart pounding, because I've seen the real deal. Take a look at it for yourself and decide if you all my handwringing over this is nothing more than wishful thinking. What doesn't look right about the photo is the artist. The hair seems wrong, and I just can't conjure the publicity shy Bolles allowing this, though I do think he let the publicity photographer, Murray Korman in his studio to photograph models. The photo has obviously been touched up (penciling in to strengthen some of the weak outlines) but there's no way the painting was pasted in after the fact. And why bother? It only took 75 years for someone to finally notice it.  And the easel...even the sketch on the canvas has a Bolles look to it. So, is it possible? Could we be peering at the only existing photo of Bolles painting a model?

August 19: Men's Grooming Day

Finally!!  I've found a passable excuse to feature this amazing "throwaway" cover that originally landed on the newsstands back in 1936.  Bolles would have quickly dashed it off to meet a looming deadline and then moved on to the next assignment.  His work schedule at that time was perhaps the busiest of his entire career.  Beside's his regular monthly assignments for Gay Parisienne, Spicy Stories and of course, Film Fun, he was producing near monthly covers for Gay Book, Breezy Stories, and Gay Broadway.  Talk about the ultimate short order illustrator, bouncing from one publisher to another, each demanding their own particular entree.  Considering the deadlines, lousy pay and very likely the complete absence of an art director (thankfully), you wonder why Bolles simply didn't default to his standard L-pose. Curiously, the only example of that pose he did for Gay Parisienne was its last issue.

Back to this cover. Take a good look at the liberally applied titivations Bolles festooned upon it. First, how about that dress?  It's outrageous! No it's downright nasty, hard to top even by Bolles' standards.  It makes you wonder if the nail file is for manicuring or fending him off. Next, what is with that crazy hairdo? She's kind of got a 1930's pompadour thing working.  It borders on masculine-especially given her high hairline, but acts as a sort of counter against the emphatically emphasized feminine bits.  And check out that meandering background shadow. In past posts I've blathered on and on about Bolles' use of  biomorphic/amorphic shadows but the only descriptor I can peg to this iteration is oozing amoebic.  There's also a hint of deco furniture.  Her chair has a red-black lacquer deco thing going, perhaps a take on  Biedermeier.  And finally there's a lot--even by Bolles' standards--of hand semiotics being broadcasted here, most unusually by the gent who is getting all the attention.  But first consider the girl, not only is she displaying the famous Bolles lifted pinky, we also see the very rare ring finger assist.  In fact I think this particular confingeration is unique. And finally there's the lifted pinky in the male figure, another unique aspect of this cover. Of all his work for Gay Parisienne (or Spicy Stories or Tattle Tales or Bedtime Stories for that matter) this is the only example where the male gender gets any cover play, not that anyone's complaining.

A Celebration Created for Enoch Bolles! August 5 is National Underwear Day

Talk about an observance custom made for our man Bolles!  This lovely original painting was completed for a 1928 issue of  Film Fun.  Bolles revisited this theme once again in 1931 during his first run of covers for Spicy Stories.  As you can see this Bolles girl is having a bit of trouble with her clothes line, not that she's in the least bit nonplussed about her predicament.  Offhand I can't recall if there are any examples where the Bolles girl is hanging up her knickers, though there is no shortage of covers where she's parading around in them.  

Dreams of a Bolles Girl

The other night I had one of those dreams...I saw a Bolles girl.   She was up in the clouds, smiling down on me.  It wasn't just any Bolles girl, but the face from a painting that had been taunting me for years, always just out of reach.  The scene abruptly shifted and next I was walking down an empty street in a strange town.  Everywhere I looked I saw pictures of her. It had to be one of those feverish dreams I must endure from time to time, a hazard of my fixation. There were other variations, in one I actually meet Bolles, get to ask him all those questions that have been burning in me, see art never before shared. In another I find the veritable closet full of paintings. Always I awake with that brief moment of confused exaltation, only to be pulled down as the weight of reality sets in.  It was just a dream.  Only a dream. But this felt different, somehow more real. 

Next thing I know I'm walking down a long street and spot the living embodiment of a Bolles girl. Not just any Bolles girl but that same cowgirl I've been in the hunt for so long.  The closer I get the more real she seems.  And then I'm inside and there are more Bolles girls, a chorus line of them...and in the middle of their dance I see it.

The painting. Only it's not a dream.  I'm awake, not hallucinating, and am surrounded by Bolles cowgirls.  And there's the painting, perched on an easel, not one of the several copies that have shown up over the past few years but the original.  The long lost Whoopee girl.

A few months ago, after a  four year search (full story here) she was pulled out of a crawlspace in an old house, amazingly none the worse for wear after lying buried for decades.  All those false trails, the impostor paintings, and finally she emerges into the light. The painting, used for a 1934 issue of Film Fun, is in near perfect condition.  A month after the issue hit the newsstands, Harmon Peery, the mayor of Odgen, Utah wrote a letter to Lester Grady, editor of Film Fun to ask if he could have the original painting to use as a mascot for a rodeo he had started.  Just a week later the painting shows up in the mail and her second career as the Whoopee Girl began.   This year marks the 75th anniversary of her serving as the official mascot to the Pioneer Days Rodeo, which is being held now.   

Mayor Peery's grandson, Robert Peery King and the Egyptian Theater Foundation graciously invited me to the official unveiling of the painting to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Whoopee Girl and I wouldn't have missed it for the world.  The event was fabulous, and painting simply amazing.  If you are interested, you will be able to purchase giclée prints of the original painting directly from Mr. King. I've seen a version done on canvas board and it looks as close to the real thing as you can get.  Some of the proceeds will be used to help build the Pioneer Days museum, which once completed with become the permanent home of Bolles' Whoopee girl painting.

So remember fellow Bolles fans, never stop searching. Sometimes dreams do come true.