If you follow our Instagram page you’ve probably seen some of the Gil Elvgren reference pictures next to the completed work we put up time to time. For the longest time I’ve been curious about the unnamed models who’s faces adorn the pulp paperbacks and vintage calendars we still look at fifty-some-odd years later.
Like Gil Elvgren, Robert McGinnis seemed to use the same models in most of his work.
Anyway, here’s what we found out so far. Hit us up if you know any pulp models we haven’t mentioned.
Gil Elvgren’s Models
The king of pin-up artists, Gil Elvgren painted a lot of famous people you’d know like Marilyn Monroe, Donna Reed and Kim Novak. But it’s the women he painted most I’m interested in identifying.
I put out a query out on Social Media and thanks to a few people (elvixente and vero_delorme_ on Instagram especially) we got some answers on these. Janet Rae seems to be his main muse, she’s in most of the ones below. He also painted Arlene Dahl, Myrna Hansen, and Barbara Hale, and Dusty Anderson.
If you know any of the models not named here, please give us a shout at [email protected] so we can name them. Thanks!
Vargas Girls
These ones are a little more obvious. To be a Vargas Girl was like to be a part of Ziegfield’s Follies or later a Playmate. Alberto Vargas painted some of the most famous women from Olive Thomas (1920) to Bernadette Peters in the 1980s.
Olive Thomas is an interesting story. Silent Film Era Hollywood was wild and her husband Jack Pickford was a one man Mardi Gras parade on Bourbon Street.
Robert McGinnis
We wrote an article a while back about how Mad Men looks like a Robert McGinnis painting, but these were published far before Jessica Paré was born.
Steve Holland
Steve Holland was an actor but he’s probably most recognizable as the model for James Bama’s Doc Savage as well as The Avenger, The Spider, and The Executioner. He’s the face of many hero’s in bad situations, men getting tortured and sadistic maniacs doing the torturing. He was a versatile guy. Sometimes he was even beating up himself.
Eva Lynd
Eva Lynd was an actress and model for a ton of pulp paintings. Robert Deis of menspulpmags.com has a great article about Eva and Steve Holland’s work together. It’s got some great reference photos with the art that you can check out. Here.
Bob is going to be at PulpFest in Pittsburgh this week (Aug 15-18) with some copies of a book about Eva Lynd. Here’s his article talking about it.
And here’s another article with more Eva Lynd stories from subtropicbob.
Hard Case Crime
The torchbearers of Pulp Fiction in the present day, Hard Case Crime has it’s covers painted in the old school pulp style by the likes of Robert McGinnis, Glen Orbik, Ricardo José Mujica, and Chuck Pyle.
The Artists Themselves
When it comes to models, the easiest thing to do as an artist is to paint oneself. Van Gogh did it, and so has our resident artist, Mundisa.
Sometimes the artists have used their own family in artwork. Like this Mars Attacks trading card by Norman Saunders with his son David.
Horwitz Publications
On my quest to find the names of the anonymous models in men’s magazines and pulp paperbacks of yesteryear I found some articles by our friends at pulpinternational.com which talked about the Australian publisher, Horwitz Publications.
Through their research they found more than a few instances of Horwitz taking images and using the actresses likeness in a painting or straight up using the picture due to the lax copyright laws in Australia back then. Anyway, here’s some examples.
This one was originally used as a promo photo the 1953 film debut Poison Ivy, it was also used for the movies poster. And Horwitz just yoinked it.
This is burlesque start Lili St. Cyr. With her, Dita Von Teese and Bettie Page it seems a lot of burlesque dancers were modeling in this world of pulp. With that kind of cross-pollination we might have to write a burlesque article in the future. Stay tuned.
