1943.
Jon Whitcomb was an American illustrator. He was well known for his pictures of glamorous young women. He was born in...
Curating Mid-Century Consumer Culture
Jon Whitcomb "A change within" Ladies' Home Journal, Jan. 1949
Explore ondiraiduveau's 47583 photos on Flickr!
Jon Whitcomb "Hello, Baby" Redbook, Aug. 1957
Not only are my vintage Woman’s Own magazines gorgeous to look at, many of the short stories are illustrated by various well known people. I’ve been surprised by each name that I’…
I love doing posts about artists I admire, and today, I am featuring Jon Whitcomb. All of the images I am posting here are ones that I found in vintage issues of McCall's magazines in my own collection. He certainly had a lovely style: I love looking at his artwork. When I saw this next one, it brought to mind the fact that "PanAm" starts on ABC on September 25th! While I am still upset about "Brothers And Sisters", I can't wait for this one. Lots of pretty ladies: If you haven't seen enough - and come on, I really don't think you have - click here to see a lot more of the gorgeous images he created during his extraordinary career.
The silent spring morning of my mid-century suburban childhood were broken by the sounds not of birds chirping but of a symphony of puttering gas lawn mowers synchronized all over the neighborhood.…
Explore ondiraiduveau's 47583 photos on Flickr!
I've been trying to get some free time today to post, and all day every moment was spoken for in some way or another. It's frightening sometimes how circumstances control our actions, guiding us through the precious moments of our lives. Some of my distractions are wonderful—my wife and daughter. For them I would give my life without hesitation. But to give away time to petty concerns of relentless daily gremlins, well, I'm sure you know what I mean. But blogging is not useless time. It gives me the opportunity to think and focus, to really examine closely the images that help give meaning to my existence. And enough of you check in here (amongst so many blogs better than this one) for me to know that we have a common love of images, and make it a worthwhile use of precious time, even though it is (literally) the end of the day. Well, I don't know where that came from, other than I'm glad to be back at the keyboard. In January of 1980, Playboy magazine, in its closing pages ran a public query about some interesting photos of the earthly goddess Marilyn Monroe—which you can read about here: These photos are truly lovely as evidenced by a better view of the primary shot: There was a response to that query. Artist Jon Whitcomb (illustrator extraordinaire of the women's magazines of the 50s and 60s) explained the pictures' origin: "Dear Playboy, Mystery Division: For The American Weekly issue of April 6, 1958, Hearst needed an Easter hat feature and asked me to paint six ladies for it. As usual, overnight. A photographer named Carl Perutz or some such Nom de Nikon handled Marilyn. He was never heard from again. If he was demolished on East 18th Street amidst actors, I'm sorry to hear it." This illustration above was obviously painted from the photo above it, but Whitcomb also painted Monroe directly on three other occasions: The cover above, and the piece below were painted during the shooting of Wilder's Some Like It Hot. The piece below dates from the shooting of The Misfits and appeared in the December 1969 Cosmopolitan.
(3 – to be continued) (more paintings)
Flickr is nothing without you, our community. We want to make sure this community continues to thrive, grow, and inspire, so we've made some big changes.
May 23, 1964. Mary Tyler Moore of CBS's "The Dick Van Dyke Show" (illus. by Jon Whitcomb).
To Canoodle or Not to Canoodle In Post-War America, love was in the air. Along with Valentines Day’s hearts and flowers, came big dates, big dances, and king sized expectations in high schools and …
Explore KlaatuCarpenter's 7744 photos on Flickr!
Charcoal on board 15.25 x 10.25 in. by Jon Whitcomb (American, 1906-1988)
