Another selection from the golden era of pin-up – c. 1930 by Hy Hintermeister. Cleopatra gazes off across the Nile, (apparently on a very hot summer’s night), perhaps dreaming and scheming about her next conquest. Notice the artistic license taken with the placement of the Sphinx versus the pyramids in the background, garlands of flowers, and contemporary hairstyle.
Let’s go back in time, to the 1940s. Depending on your age, you may or may not know that the populace was still using pens – tubes filled with ink – to record information. That’s right, folks, there were no computers. No blogs. And blissfully, no Facebook. The difficulty with pens at that time, however, was their tendency to be rather messy and for that reason blotters were used to, er, blot up excess ink from your document to prevent smudges. Many companies jumped on this opportunity to hawk their wares to almost everybody, and thousands of inexpensive cardboard blotters were produced with eye-catching designs. Since the WWII era continued the pin-up art of previous decades, this was also utilized by advertisers depending upon their target audience. (Guys are SO predictable). The blotter shown here is such an example, though void of any company info which suggests it may have been offered as a gift from an entertainment venue. Apparently the subject is Cleopatra, but the historical inaccuracies compete with each other as fiercely as Caesar and M. Antony, who are shown here hurling tomatoes at each other.
This advertising blotter from the Southern Carbon Brush Co. (c. 1930) features an eye-catching illustration titled ‘Egypt’s Daughter’. Like most pin-up stars, she seems to be having difficulty with her clothing, as well as with her ethnic identity.
Not to state the obvious, but Egyptian themes lent themselves particularly well to the world of pin-up art. Pictured here is “Egyptian Night” from the 1930s by popular artist Rolf Armstrong. A blonde Cuacasian woman is set like a jewel amid rich decorative objects, with a stunning evening view of the Pyramids in the background. Is she a trophy bride, or victim of the slave trade? Relaxing in satisfied anticipation, or slumped in an opiate induced stupor?
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