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Curators' Picks: March 2 Pin-Up, Playboy, and Men's Magazine Art Showcase Auction
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Sarahjane's Picks
Sarahjane Blum | Director of Illustration Art
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Gil Elvgren's career as the premiere pin-up calendar artist of the 20th century
began at Louis F. Dow, and Miss-Placed Confidence (Dog Gone It) is
a delightful early example of his developing sensibility. Mixing humor and sex
appeal, it has all the charm collectors look for in works by the artist. Not to
mention, the look on the dog's face gives me a smile every time.
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Maybe it's the cape, maybe it's the impish smile, maybe it's
the classic gravity defying Peter Driben shoes? Whatever it is, I'm enchanted
by this Beauty Parade cover, which balances hints of Rita
Hayworth with a vixen that could come from nowhere but Driben's
own imagination.
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Meagen's Pick
Meagen McMillan | Senior Consignment Director, Illustration Art
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George Booth has long been one of my favorite cartoonists
whether for Playboy or The New Yorker - the
man is funny in caption and line. Here a tortured man wrapped in chains emerges
from his cold plunge because it's time to eat his vitamins. The absurdity is
equal parts ponderous and humorous. This is just one of the many Men's Magazine
gags awaiting in this sale to join your collection!
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Ezriel's Picks
Ezriel Wilson | Cataloguer, Illustration Art
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I always love when a cartoon can draw a physical reaction,
especially a giggle! Erich Sokol's gouache on board Sometimes I Think
I'd Like to Move... from the March 1960 issue of Playboy had
me in stitches. Sokol, an Austrian artist, is well known for his beautiful
witty women rendered in his cartoons for Playboy from the late
50's until the mid-70's. In this work, Sokol has rendered two dressed up women
perched in the ambiance of a hotel bar engaging in the perfect gal's moment of
cocktails, complaints, and cigarettes. A Playboy classic that proves great taste
is always in season.
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This wonderfully rendered work by Peter Darro exhibits the
beautiful blend of pin-up and the natural world. Darro's oil on canvas, That's Quackers!, depicts a blonde poised on a bank of a pond feeding popcorn to
two playful feathered friends on the water. Darro, studio assistant and
photographer for Gil Elvgren, was also a naturalist who had the ability to
achieve meticulous accuracy in his subjects, maintaining their vibrant colors
and exciting vitality, seen in the small brown duck nibbling the female
figure's shoe, but also in the male Mandarin duck, which is sometimes a symbol
for romance, fidelity, and beauty. Equal parts elegance and eccentricity -
utterly, irresistibly quackers.
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Meagen McMillan
Senior Consignment Director,
Illustration Art
MeagenM@HA.com
(214) 409-1546
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Ezriel Wilson
Cataloguer,
Illustration Art
EzrielW@HA.com
(214) 409-1112
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