Painted on the cabin of a bomber, suspended to a truck rearview mirror, pined on a fridge or sticked up on a Coca-Cola advertisement, the pin-up went for more than 50 years next to the everyday life of lots of american citizens. Cultural icon of the XXth century, reassuring, selling or even alluring, this model woman brought her influence to all the sectors of the society.

Among its illustrators and creators, the name of Gil Elvgren immediately imposes itself. Born in 1914 and dead in 1980, this American will have acted during the whole phenomenon and reigned on the sector during its golden era. Firstly taking photos of models, he then painted the pictures changing and correcting the legs length, the chest volume and the hair movements. With more than 500 portraits, all tinted with a less dramatic made freshness and humor, he developed the referent image of the woman, sexy, voluptuous, innocent, but not at all, though without any vulgarity. A perfect aesthetic to seduce men as housewives. Hired by Brown & Bigelow, he’ll make for the agency the Coca-Cola, Ford, Ovomaltine or General Electrics commercial campaigns.