Good Girl Art ~ GGA ~ Fabulous Stuff
What is Good Girl Art or GGA as it has become known ?
Well, quite simply it refers to some of the fabulous artwork featuring beautiful and sexy women used to adorn pulp paperbacks and book covers and dust jackets - I believe it to be genuine art and iconic of it’s period.
There’s a vintage glamour and real style to this form of artwork, whilst the books themselves are very dated, and usually poorly written, the cover artwork does today what it did over 50 years ago - it sells the book !
The book pictured left is far from being the best example, unlike the one at the bottom, but a cursory glance at the title will reveal the reason for inclusion.
Although many of the images may be regarded as somewhat ’sexist’ they do treat the women with artistic reverence and respect. We live in a time of topless celebrities and the like but these images are infinitely more glamorous and, if you like, sexy.
We have featured a great modern artist who treats the subject with similar reverence, albeit a different style, that being the work of the excellent local artist Karen Middleton.
One of the finest exponents, in my humble opinion, of the good Girl Art genre is Reginald Heade someone I’ve been doing a lot of work on recently.
Search Google for Reginald Heade and check out the Classic Crime Fiction website for plenty of examples and an expansive list of his canon of work.
The artwork reflects, although somewhat rosily perhaps, the style of the period. A completely different form of glamour and style which was also shared by men of the time - sharp suits, over coats and hats.
Obviously all the women did not look and dress with such panache just as most women today are not Victoria Beckham. However, they do represent the historical view of the style and glamour of the time just a history will probably see the likes of modern fashion players like Kate Moss and Cheryl Cole and bands like the Pussycat Dolls as indicative of our times.
Personally I think the GGA stylistic portrayals show them all a clean pair of heels.
What do you think of them ?
Artistically Yours
Rod
The Master of GGA ~ Reginald heade
the dinosaur said,
May 25, 2009 @ 9:41 am
Rod, Such paintings may not be considered technically great art, they may be only saying one thing “buy this book” but they have a quality that is rare these days- subtlety! The colours are muted, there’s no attempt at precision or detail and the ladies suggest rather than shout who they are but the effect is powerful. They are due respect and should be valued as much as other illustrators, well done for drawing our attention to them.
Rod said,
May 25, 2009 @ 1:11 pm
Dino,
many thanks for that and for the description which perfectly describes the art form, far better than my own I have to say.
It’s such a shame that so many of the these great artists are being lost - I try to ’save’ as many as I can for posterity on my Classic Crime Fiction site but sadly much of this artwork is unsigned.
Cheers
Rod