The Glamour Girls of Bill Ward

Renowned pin-up artist Bill Ward gets the full coffee table treatment in a lavish, oversized, full-color collection of his most polished 1950s illustrations. Imagine, if you will, an innocent but stunning young woman boasting the most unlikely Barbie-like proportions—and then some—poured into a wisp of lingerie or clingy cocktail dress, silky opera-length gloves, and sheer thigh-high stockings, perched precariously but not inelegantly atop a pair of dangerously high stiletto heels, and you've got the recipe for the quintessential Wardian glamour girl. Ward's girls became staples of countless men's and humor magazines where he shared the pages with cult models like Bettie Page and fellow "good girl" artists such as Dan DeCarlo and Jack Cole. Ward became the standard bearer and justly famous through the '50s and '60s for his angular, high-sheen images of improbably busty glamour girls, a kind of low-rent Charles Dana Gibson. What set Ward apart—and above—his talented contemporaries was his use of a medium called the conte crayon. When drawn on a simple newsprint stock, this potent combination created a charcoal-like effect and color that gave Ward's original art an elegant sepia-tone quality. This volume features the best of Ward's Humorama work, including a selection of Ward's infamous telephone girls. Tame by today's standards, Ward's telephone girls were considered provocative at the time, caught as they were in various states of dress or, more often, undress. The majority of the images in this volume were drawn between 1956 and 1963 when Ward was at the height of his skill, shot from original art and printed in full color. This book not only reproduces over a hundred beautifully rendered illustrations, but captures a more innocent moment in American pop culture. 72 pages color