I’ve been a fan of the Illustrations in vintage Textron ads for some time. According to Wikipedia Textron started out as “Special Yarns Company”, making synthetic yarns, and later merged with another company to become Textron.

These days they are apparently mostly making stuff like aircraft and weapons, but in the 40s they made wonderful lingerie and lounge wear.

The advertisement illustrations all have a dreamy fantasy quality that I love, very surrealist inspired. The illustrator was Charlotte J. Sternberg.

Where no source is mentioned the images were generally found in Ebay lots.

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Ryan Heshka is one of my favourite contemporary artists. I love his heavily pulp inspired, action filled paintings with beautiful bright colours. I kind of wish the ladies he paints were available as dolls.

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While I love vintage pinup photos I’m not a big fan of most pinup art. Elvgren and similar artists for some reason just don’t interest me very much, and I guess this is the reason most modern pinup photography doesn’t interest me. It so often tends to emulate pinup paintings rather than pinup photos.

One major exception to this is Enoch Bolles. I love Bolles’ pinup paintings. His style is vastly different from most other pinup artists and his girls just have an entirely different air about them. They are so very glamorous, and they are truly seductive rather than looking stupid or displaying contrived innocence (no “oops” faces!). Not that I can’t enjoy that stupid look every now and then, but the attitude of Bolles’ girls are a breath of fresh air to me.

Bolles’ style is highly stylized and not very realistic, as opposed to the Elvgren type girls which quite clearly were painted from models. The Bolles girls are purely imaginary, and they are spectacular! They also tend to wear the most amazing and intricate outfits. Pay special attention to the shoes!

Many of these were found at the excellent Enoch Bolles blog.

Tons of pictures »

I haven’t seen many pictures by pulp illustrator Harry Lemon Parkhurst, but I love the ones I have. They’re exotic and feature the coolest ladies wielding spears, fighting with crocodiles and whatnot. His technique and anatomy are not the best, but who cares with motifs like these.

By the way, I made two separate tags for my own art and other people’s art, in case you’re looking for just one of the two.

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Mary Blair was a wonderful illustrator who did a lot of design and concept art for Disney. among other things she designed the It’s a Small World ride. We have a Mary Blair print over our sofa.

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Harold W. McCauley is another great pulp artist who has made some of my favourite covers. I also love his use of sparkle effects!

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John Anster Fitzgerald was a British 19th century painter, and I love his moody and detailed pictures of faeries.

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One of the most prolific pulp magazine cover artists. Lots of girls in fanciful space bras!

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Norwegian Theodor Kittelsen is one of my very favourite artists. I love his mysterious pictures based on Scandinavian folklore. They capture these stories perfectly and have the kind of mood I wish I could create in my own pictures.

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I love pulp illustrations and they have had a great influence on my own art. They have everything: excitement and action, drama and mystery, pretty girls, monsters, glamour and fantastic outfits. My favorite pulp illustrations are the ones with space and science fiction themes. I’ll feature some specific illustrators later, but in this post are all the pulp paintings where I don’t know the illustrator. There are a few movie posters in there as well that I felt fit with the theme.

If you recognise the illustrator of any of these, please leave a comment!

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