Bolles in Esquire

Boingboing generously linked the recent post in which I had proposed a connection between Bolles and a cover of Esquire channeled via Rihanna, and wow has this site gotten the extra hits. The typical daily average is around 200 but visits peaked over 1,200. The downside was all the comments on Boingboing were adamant that the Bolles cover had nothing, NOTHING at all to do with the Esquire cover, and others wagged a scolding finger about posting filthy, FILTHY cheesecake. Well, we Bolles fans are of a different mind, and connection or not the more significant point was Esquire's largely forgotten
contribution to the history of pinup, which spun a thread running back decades to the origins of genre, and how Enoch Bolles is a part of that original fabric.

In the previous post I mentioned the intriguing 'what-if' possibility of Bolles becoming Petty's replacement at Esquire. Aside from his growing health problems I think the fact he worked exclusively in oil militated against his chances. Petty's sleek airbrushed girls were unique and readers were raving about them (though many also complained about Petty's tendency to graft two different body sizes together at the waist).  It would have been foolish for David Smart to hire a replacement whose work had a wildly different appearance. Vargas not only provided a sense of stylistic continuity but he amped up Petty's streamline look even further. Curiously their techniques were completely different; Petty's unique method to airbrushing involved laying on solid colors as if they were color plate separations. By comparison Bolles was a traditionalist and the idea of using an airbrush would have been
unconscionable.

That's not to say he didn't have his own debut of sorts in Esquire.  In the December, 1937 issue the ad you see above appeared in its pages, featuring what came to be known as the Windy girl.  Look closely and you'll see the painting was attributed to "Enoc Boles".  The spelling is so derelict it makes you wonder whether the type setter was coached by David Smart, the co-founder of Esquire who later anglicized Alberto's sir-name as Varga.  Smart somehow neglected to mentioned he owned the trademark for it.  In Bolles' case the misspelling didn't matter so much because it was subsequently stripped out of the ad, never to appear again.  Over the years the Windy girl image got updated now and then but eventually fell out of favor for other advertising campaigns.  However, in 1993 the original image was back, embossed on a commemorative lighter--and retitled as the Varga girl!  Being curious, to say the least, I inquired about it to the archivist at Zippo and the story went that the company founder, George Blaisdell was an admirer of Vargas but couldn't afford to hire him to bring Windy to life.  Keep in mind the year was 1937.  Vargas was strapped financially and would soon for Los Angeles to work in the movie industry as an illustrator and set designer, a career decision that didn't turn out well for him. Things had changed so little by 1941 that Esquire hired Vargas for a rate less than Bolles was getting for his Film Fun covers.  So money wasn't the issue, it was George Petty.  A Windy girl by Petty would have been the obvious first choice for Blaisdell, but Petty's rates were far above Zippo's budget, and  our man Bolles stepped in.  There was another factor in Bolles' favor.  Unlike Petty, who was repelled by the image of a woman with a cigarette (his Old Gold ads all had the men holding the smokes), Bolles had no reticence at all.  In fact he had depicted a girl smoking all the way back in 1914 on his second published magazine, a wildly popular image for Judge magazine which I think may have been the first magazine cover ever showing a woman with a lit cigarette (if you know of earlier examples please let me know).  The image jump started his career and cigarettes would become a common prop for Bolles girls through the decades.

 Bolles' cover for Judge was

so popular it was reprinted

as a poster.

To Zippo's credit the web-site now gives Bolles proper credit for creating the Windy girl and no longer refers to her as a Varga (threats from the Vargas estate may have had something to do with that).  I also learned from the Zippo archivist that for years Blaisdell proudly displayed the original Bolles painting in his office, but sadly it has gone missing.   Bolles thought enough of Windy to have carefully saved the proof of the image, which I found in stashed in a box in his grandson's basement.  Now if that painting would just turn up!

Blink and you'll miss her...

...and I almost did.  After a few days away I was back home, slogging through a backlog of emails that had piled up like snow in Buffalo.  Several were Google alerts for Enoch Bolles, one of which ended up linking to an image I'd uploaded to a flickr group months ago.  I hadn't been back to look since then so out of curiosity I opened the page to the group (Flappers and the Jazz Era) to check out thumbnails of recent entries.  Buried among them was an image that tickled a very small, but overdeveloped patch of neurons in my brain.  I enlarged the image and alarm bells starting ringing. There were tell-tale signs; long hands, fingers sinuously entwined; heart-shaped lips, the ends drawn tight like penny candy wrappers into a calm smile; rouged cheeks, a bit heavy for my taste; lovely pearls each so carefully rendered.  The bobbed hair style was spot-on but the treatment seemed too sculptural.  And then those peepers, beautiful yes but fringed by that mess of mascara which made them look like they'd draw blood if she blinked too hard. 

Still, I wasn't entirely certain but then my eyes were drawn to what looked like a small fingerprint in the corner and that's when my heart started pounding. I zoomed on in and "bing" and there it was.  Look closely and you'll see the initials EB modestly rendered next to her shoulder.  A new Bolles!  Published in 1925 amid his most active period of advertising illustration for all sorts of products and now we can add Winx to the list. What a great New Year present.  My thanks go to clotho98 who posted the image. Check out her flickr page for hundreds of other great vintage images.

So I'll leave you with a question that this entry has revived.  From 1924 to 1926 Bolles produced a huge body of advertising work, from trolley cards for a wide variety of products, to full color posters for films, to magazine illos like this one. There's plenty more around to be sure. But as far as I can tell, after 1926 his advertising work dropped to near nothing and I have no clue why.  In 1927 Snappy Stories stopped publication, leaving Bolles with Film Fun as his only regular assignment, so it wasn't as if he was overextended.  He must have taken on other work to fill the gaps, but where is it?

Addendum:  I want to give a shout-out to the Dawl for the fabulous seasonal update he gave this blog. Thanks!!

Happy Holidays!!

Thought I'd share my favorite Bolles Santa with you. The fact is, this is also my favorite Bolles advertising illustration. It's as if the art editor saw the comp for the ad and said, "I'll take it as is." Enjoy!

Saint Nicolas Day! Celebrate with a Cigar.

Before this blog peters out I will be justifiably accused of claiming ad nauseam that this or that image is my favorite Bolles pretty girl or magazine cover. But here and now I stand fast (scout's honor!) that this truly is my favorite Bolles advertising illustration. Aside from the punchy composition and incongruous theme (at least by today's standards), this is just a fabulous painting bordering on bravura. Even a casual look reveals a rhythm and cadence in the slashing brush strokes. There is no opportunity for overpainting here: one mistake and you start the entire thing over. And for me it is this very quality that make the illustration so intriguing. In a few years Bolles' technique would become so rarefied signs of brushstrokes would disappear altogether.

National Smoke Out Day is Over. Need a Light?

Meet Windy. She's the most famous unknown Bolles girl of them all. In fact a lot of people still think her last name is Vargas, or is that Varga? I'll post her entire story soon. If you thought in my earlier comments I was kidding about Bolles obsessing over hand poses, check out how Windy is handling her Zippo. Talk about digital manipulation.

An artist of many talents

When I first began looking into the career of Enoch Bolles the official party line about him went something like this: An artist who specialized in scandalous and somewhat cartoony pinups. This and other similar descriptions of Bolles effectively stamped him as a semi-talented cartoonist who specialized in pretty girls and nothing else. But the reality of this was an entirely different matter. The unknown truth was that at the same time Bolles was turning out his charming covers for Film Fun and other magazines at the rate of three to five a month he had a parallel career as a talented illustrator in high demand who worked for the top advertising agencies including J. Walter Thompson and Barron Collier's Consolidated Streetcar Railway Advertising Company, that was responsible for publishing many of Bolles Trolley cards. The products he illustrated for these and other clients spanned the gamut from bread to swimsuits to Zippo lighters. He did advertising work for major products and companies including Sun-Maid Raisins, Fleischman's yeast, Palm Beach suits, Best Foods and Fox Films (I've only recently discovered his work for the talkies). Unfortunately most of this work was done anonymously, despite the fact that many top artists not only signed their advertising art but additionally, loaned their names to add to the status of the product. Think Leyendecker-Arrow Shirts, Maxfield Parrish-General Electric, Rockwell Kent-Bituminous Coal Institute.


Bolles was not a party among this stellar group
but even lesser names were featured in ad campaigns. Bolles was never one to foist his name but in all likelihood he had already become to some extent tainted by his own particular specialization, namely illustrating very pretty girls who were a lot sexier than those of his peers and competitors. In that sense he
had become a victim of his own talents. But if you look at the two examples I posted you'll see an artist of far greater range and emotional subtlety (also: the lettering in these ads was done freehand by him).




A copy of Snappy Magazine from 1924.
The magazine had been banned in several
cities and the entire state of Kansas.
Bolles initialed but never his entire name to
nearly everycover of Snappy he painted.