Alluring Pin-up Art by American Illustrator Fritz Willis.

Pin-up

When the French painter, sculptor and drawer Alain ‘Aslan’ Bourdain (1930-2014) was 12, he already made his first sculptures after putting aside money to obtain two soft stones. The Bordeaux-born..

is an art style that emerged in the 1890s, although the term ‘pin-up’ was for the first ᴛι̇ɱe used in 1941. The practice of pinning posters up the walls was connected with the expansion of newspapers and journals, especially women’s magazines advertising

At first glance, the advertising campaign the Belgian weekly magazine Humo did a few years ago, looks like the bumbling of an inattentive designer. But if you look twice, you will see the idea behind these ads for a..

cosmetics. Gibson girl, invented by Charles Dana Gibson in the USA, was the ancestor of a pin-up girl, seductively looking from the pages of the Life magazine.

Eastern Cousins

Gibson girls and their pin-up sisters have distant Eastern cousins, Japanese beauties depicted by Utamaro

Kitagawa Utamaro (1753-1806) is among the five greatest ukiyo-e masters. His refined portrayal of female beauty is virtually unmatched. At the end of his career his work suffered from an artistic decline except for..

, Shigenobu

The following forceful shunga design by Yanagawa Shigenobu (1787-1833) is the 10th plate from his masterpiece ‘ Willow Storm ‘ published in the late 1820s. Palanquin Bearers It exhibits a gang rape..

, Hokusai

Japanese greatest artist in history Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) excelled in all ukiyo-e genres. He produced his most iconic designs in the landscape ( The Great Wave ) and the shunga ( The Dream of the..

, and, of course, Keisai Eisen

After Hokusai , undoubtedly the most striking figure among the later shunga artists is Keisai Eisen (1790-1848). Eisen was to prove one of the most prolific (together with Kunisada ) of all ukiyo-e shunga masters…

, who worked majorly in the bijinga genre. Ukiyo-e masters shaped the cultural landscape as much as their European

In this probably unique and distinguishing Japanese shunga surimono (commissioned print) Shigenobu portrays his sensual participants, a European couple, as godlike figures (the female is stunningly beautiful) set..

and American colleagues by showing the picture of an ideal woɱaп. Pin-up beauties like Dita von Teese or Rose McGowan have their admirers today. Fritz Willlis (1907-1979) was one of the great pin-up artists. He ɱaпaged to create his own distinctive approach working in a recognizable pin-up ɱaпner.