Wednesday 12 May 2010

Hawaiian Venus by Al Moore



It was unseasonally cold this morning in Surrey's capital of bling. We actually had a frost and only two degrees! So, given that, it's probably time to have another South Seas lovely to warm us up!

This is one of my favourite Polynesian pin-ups, from Al Moore in 1949, very much riding the wave of the post-Pacific War love of island girls.






Al Moore, who died in 1991, was a very successful commercial artist who got really well known when he replaced Alberto Vargas as Esquire's pin up artist in 1946. Succesful pin-up and calendar work followed although he continued to do high profile work for clients like Hertz and Coca Cola.





Moore's girls were rather more realistically proportioned than some of his rivals and, as a result, have a nice girl next door quality.





For the 1951 Esquire calendar he returned to the Tiki theme with another couple of South Seas lovelies.



The fact there were two out of twelve images with a South Pacific theme shows how popular the Tiki fashion had become since the war.



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