1000 Pin-Up Girls (Bibliotheca Universalis)

by Peter Driben

“Girls, Gags & Giggles,” ran publisher Robert Harrison’s recipe for dishing up pin-up to the American male. Men loved his tasty dishes, a mixture of strippers and starlets dressed in outfits so fetishistic no one noticed they were never nude. While other magazines delivered the girl next door, Harrison’s publications banked on bad girls in satin and leather, fishnet stockings, and six-inch heels performing slapstick stunts straight from the burlesque stage.

Harrison lured his readers in with vibrantly painted covers by top pin-up artists Earl Moran, Billy DeVorss and, most famously, Peter Driben. This Bibliotheca Universalis edition celebrates this eye-catching candy with every single cover from Beauty Parade, Wink, Titter, Eyeful, Flirt, and Whisper, from 1942 to 1955, as well as interior spreads, featuring, among others, a budding Bettie Page. In an age when far more graphic material is the norm, 1000 Pin-Up Girls celebrates an era of pin-up and pulp style to fuel your erotic imagination.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Reference, History

540 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2016

Reviews

[Gorgeous]

This was a fun and great present. It's interesting to flip through pages and see how the consumer eye and the male gaze has changed for what is externally promoted as sexy attractive and popular. My greatest appreciation were the sketches. That takes great artistry and skill. Fun visual historical book to have.

[Abigail Daly-Smith]

Exactly what it says it is

[fer]

Um livro enorme, lindissimo, e uma puta aquisiçao pra estantes de livros.

[Sara Palmer]

Fun images and detailed descriptions of how beauty standards changed (thick thighs in the 30s for example) and the history of pin-up as military art, fapping magazine material and other commercial media uses.

[Charles]

In the modern world of nudity on demand and where it is often sent as a pick-me-up, the appearance of the pin-up girl seems rather quaint. The women only go down to the level of bra and panties, although there is some occasional cleavage or other suggestive curve.
The title of this book is accurate in that it contains a series of images taken from the “tame” girlie magazines. Most of the entries are of cover images that were painted, although there are a few B & W photos. These often include advertisements that appeared in the magazines, which is also of interest. Some of the sexiest images are the photos of the clearly topless women taken in dark silhouette.
A throwback to a time when tantalizing, suggestive images of women were placed on covers to catch the eye, this book contains a great deal of artwork that is now a part of history. The women are sexy in a sense considered subdued to the modern eye, but was thought to be very hot decades ago.