Gil Elvgren

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Gil Elvgren: "The Verdict Was, Wow!", 1947

Gillette (Gil) Elvgren (born March 15, 1914 in St. Paul , Minnesota , † February 29, 1980 ) was an American pin-up painter and advertising artist.

Life

After high school, Elvgren began studying at the University of Minnesota , where he had registered for the subjects of architecture and design because of his drawing skills. At the same time he took art courses at the Minneapolis Institute of Art . In the summer of 1933 he made the decision to create art rather than designing buildings and turned away from architecture. While studying art, Andrew Loomis was one of his fellow students .

He graduated at the age of 22 and started working in the arts department of Stevens and Gross , one of the most prestigious advertising agencies in Chicago . Here he met Haddon Sundblom , who had achieved fame, among other things, for inventing the character of the Coca-Cola Santa Claus. Sundblom became his mentor and Elvgren also drew numerous advertisements for Coca-Cola during this time. Sundblom, who had studied at the elite American Academy of Fine Arts , taught his star student the painting technique that Elvgren would later make famous himself.

In 1937 Elvgren began painting calendar pin-ups for Louis F. Dow , one of the leading American publishers. He delivered around 60 works for Dow, which can be recognized today by the fact that they are signed with Elvgren's name in block letters and not, as in the later paintings, with his curved signature. However, the Dow calendar sheets were often painted over and changed after their first publication, only to be republished and distributed.

In 1944 Elvgren received an offer from the calendar publisher Brown & Bigelow. Rolf Armstrong, Earl Moran and Zoë Mozert worked there, who had already made a name for themselves as pin-up artists and with whom he was now in more or less direct competition. Brown & Bigelow was the market leader in the production of calendars and other promotional items. Elvgren initially received $ 1,000 per pin-up, which was considerably more than he had made at Louis F. Dow. His contract was to paint 20 calendar girls a year.

At Dow he painted 71 cm × 56 cm. At Brown & Bigelow, Elvgren chose the larger format of 76 cm × 61 cm for his paintings from the beginning, which he considered to be the perfect dimensions. With a few exceptions, which were even larger custom-made products, he painted in this canvas format for the next 30 years.

In 1951, his salary had more than doubled. Brown & Bigelow now paid nearly $ 2,500 per painting, with an agreement of 24 works per year. In addition, he has received fees for magazine illustrations and other advertising campaigns. So he could afford to move away from Chicago with his family, initially to Winnetka , 30 kilometers further north. He now employed an assistant who supported him with the photography and the lighting of the models, decorated the backdrops and prepared his paints and brushes. Two years later, the family moved again to Siesta Key in Florida , where a number of family friends and acquaintances already lived. Florida became Elvgren's adopted home.

Elvgren carefully planned each of his paintings. Based on an initial idea, he first developed the scenery itself and then selected the appropriate model. Then he chose the wardrobe, the background for the studio, the props and the right lighting. Finally, he photographed the scene with a Rollei camera and carried out the painting using oil paints on canvas.

The most salient feature of Gil Elvgren's pin-ups is their lifelike rendering. His images of women always had personality and verve. Her friendliness and beauty embodied the All American Girl for many of her viewers from the 1940s to the 1960s . As is common in pin-up art, there are very few paintings by Elvgren that depict women naked. The models are shown dressed throughout in everyday situations, in which the eroticism of the scenery is created by a coincidental, only partial revelation of the body, for example by revealing the lingerie or cleavage.

Elvgren preferred young models who were just beginning their careers. In his opinion, they exuded the freshness and spontaneity that was lost in models with greater experience. More and more Hollywood starlets came to him who offered themselves as models, because the illustration on one of his calendars could give them a boost to their careers. His pin-ups include Myrna Loy , Arlene Dahl , Donna Reed , Barbara Hale and Kim Novak , who were models for him at the beginning of their respective careers.

Gil Elvgren died of cancer at the age of 65.

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personal data
SURNAME Elvgren, Gil
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Elvgren, Gillette (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American pin-up and advertising artist
DATE OF BIRTH March 15, 1914
PLACE OF BIRTH St. Paul , Minnesota
DATE OF DEATH February 29, 1980