R.I.P. Candye Kane

It was 2006, I got the question from work, If I would do a tour for United By Music. Not a clue what it was, searching the internet for an answer. There was the name Candye Kane and a organization around people with disabilities. The tour was about 2 weeks true the Netherlands visiting different venues were these people life. Together with the help of my dad we build the stage lights at each venue, so the United by music good preform. The whole idea was, giving the people with disabilities a stage. So the start of each show was with some disabled people from the venue it self, after that 3 artist that were chosen to come with the tour and played each show, and after that there was Miss Candye Kane and here friends. Artist she gathered to come over and have a good time. Her son Evan on drums, Sue Palmer on piano, Bill Stuve on bass, Billy Watson on harmonica, Johnny Ferreira on sax and Robbie Smith on trumpet, a great band having fun together playing, and each show became more and more one big jam session.

”Candye Kane, born Candace Hogan (November 13, 1961 – May 6, 2016),was an American singer, songwriter and performer best known in the blues and jazz genre. She was included in the books Rolling Stone Guide to Jazz and Blues, Elwood’s Blues by Dan Aykroyd, The Blueshound Guide to Blues, Allmusic, and other blues books and periodicals. She also had a career as a pornographic actress during porn’s golden age.

In 2011, Kane was nominated for two Blues Music Awards by the Blues Foundation, BB King Entertainer of the Year, and Best Contemporary Blues Female.

Kane was nominated for four Blues Music Awards, for the BB King Entertainer of the Year Award, Best Contemporary Blues CD for Superhero, and Best Contemporary Blues Female of 2010. She has won numerous awards, including the Best Blues Band award at the San Diego Music Awards seven times.

Her other recent honors included Best Blues CD of 2005 at the San Diego Music Awards; the Trophees France International Award 2004 for Best International Blues Chanteuse and Artist of the Year. She unseated Jewel for Artist of the Year at the San Diego Music Awards and won the California Music Award for Best Swing-Cabaret Artist. In May 2007, Kane won an award for Best Original Blues composition by the West Coast Songwriters Association for her song, “I’m My Own Worst Enemy.” In 2012, Miss Kane received a special Courage in Music Award at the San Diego Music Awards ceremonies.

In 2014, Kane was nominated for a Blues Music Award in the ‘Contemporary Blues Female Artist of the Year’ category.” (source, wikipedia)

Candye didn’t win the fight against cancer, and died at May 6, 2016 aged 54.

Pin-up Girls

This time a real small book. It’s simply called “Pin-Up girls”, from the author Isabella Alston. Published by TAJ Books International in 2014. The book has 95 pages in it, most of them are nice pictures of paintings and drawings.

The start of the book, tells us the story of Pin-Up. How it started, and went big during world war I and later world war II. It tells about the Gibson girls from 1890’s. Charles Dana Gibson combined a fragile, beautiful woman with a curvy figure. and was seen as a ”modern” woman. A lot of other illustrators will come by in this small story in te book. After the part about the paintings, there is a small part about the next era, the part were the camera was introduced. Bruno Bernard, who worked as Bruno of Hollywood, captured a wide array of pin-up poses with his camera in the 1940s and 1950s. The part about Vargas tells us he was one of the first acclaimed pin-up artists. He is often credited with pioneering the concept of the centerfold. And went big with the Varga Girl calendar, which made his reputation. In 1960, he joined Playboy recruited by Hugh Hefner, to be the magazine’s primary artist. The last part of this 10 page story in the book, is about the most famous Pin-up icons, like Marilyn Monroe and Bettie Page. They started as a model, and became big icons and by that did some acting.

This book is not really about (new) stories, most of them we all know, or stories you can find in other bigger books, were they will write a lot more about the different subjects in this book. The book is 10 pages of text and after that 82 plates, from nice illustrations to movie star photo’s from the start to late 1980s.

Marilyn Monroe

Josephine Baker

Betty Grable

 

The great American Pin-Up

The next book I want to tell you about, is a book from the publisher, Taschen. Taschen was founded in 1980, in Germany and started out as a publisher of comics. Nowadays, they publish all kind of styles and help bring art to a broader public for reasonable prices. If you look around, you can find many nice books about Pin-up artists as well, and this is the first one I will talk about.

So the name of this book, The Great American Pin-Up. The first edition was printed in 1996, mine is from 2014. All texts in this book you will find in English, German and French, with a total of 240 pages full of nice stories and well colored drawings.

In the first two chapters of the book ”The ‘fine’ art of illustration” and ”The great american Pin-up”, the story is told about the artist/illustrators in those periode. Were they an artist or an illustrator? Before the camera was invented in the middle of the nineteenth century, all artists essentially illustrated. After that they probably cross the line between the job of illustrating and the creation of fine art. The strange thing is virtually none of the artist in this book, ever had an exhibition of his or her work in a gallery or a museum. And almost none sold paintings as collectible works of art. Also explained is a definition of therms of what a pin-up image is. A ”pin-up” image is one that shows a full-length view of its subject and characteristically has an element of the theme or some kind a story. The woman in a pin-up is usually dressed in a form-revealing outfit, either one that may be worn in public, such as a bathing suit, sunsuit, or skimpy dress, or one that is more provocative and intimate, such as lingerie.

But lets get on to the artists chapters. We all know the famous once like, Gil Elvgren and Alberto Vargas, so this time I will go true some other artists chapters in the book.

Let’s start with chapter about Joyce Ballantyne. In 1945 Ballantyne began painting pin-ups for Brown and Bigelow, having been recommended by Elvgren. She was introduced to the staff as ”the brightest young star on the horizon of illustrative art.” After she made her first ”novelty-fold” brochure for the company, she got the honor of creating an Artist’s sketch pad twelve-page calendar. In 1954, she painted her 12 most important pin-ups, for a calendar published by Shaw-barton. When it was released national in 1955, the demand from new advertisers was so great that the company reprinted it many times. Ballantyne then painted one of the most famous advertising images ever. She won the commission from several other illustrators, with her illustration for Coppertone suntan lotion. It became an icon : its little pig-tailed girl whose playful dog pulls at her bathing suit charmed the entire nation. (that painting is not in this book)  In 1974 she moved with her husband to Florida, where she began painting fine-art portraits. She died in 2006.

Next up is, Billy DeVorss. Billy sold his first three published pin-ups to louis F. Dow calendar company in St. Paul about 1933. Until that time, he had been working as a teller in a bank in St.Joseph, Missouri; there he met the stunning woman, Glenna, who became his wife and first official model. Covers for Beauty parade and the king features syndicate as well as calendar commissions from Osborne and goes companies followed in the early 1940’s. Help Wanted (1944), Devorss’s most famous pin-up image, was kept in the Shaw-Barton line for more than five years. DeVorss always worked from live models for the final painting; he did, however, employ photographs for preliminary stages. His vibrant pin-ups, inspired by New York’s theaters and nightclubs, display a fine sense of composition, a flowing, graceful line, and a daring blend of colors. DeVorrs died in 1985.

Help Wanted

The last artist I will tell you about, George Petty. George was the creator of the Petty Girl as the book says. From 1933 to 1956, the likeness of her was seen on tens of millions of calendars, magazine centerfolds, advertisements, posters and billboards as well as on all sorts of special products; The Petty Girl even became a major motion picture. The Petty Girl had a mischievous, engaging smile and a special twinkle in her eyes. Long-limbed and well endowed, she was a slick, supple, and alluring creature. She frequently wore only the barest of necessities (and sometimes not even that); she flirted with her eyes and body, but always tastefully. The first model he used for the creation of the Petty Girl was the artist’s wife, followed by his daughter when she became a teenager and even his son, who was enlisted to pose for the ”Petty Man” in the Jantzen ad campaign. Whatever his secret, Petty certainly had the magic touch. As one critic so aptly put it, ”When you touch the wrist of a Petty Girl, you almost expect to feel a pulse.”  Petty died on July 21, 1975, in San Pedro, California.

In the book 14 other Artist will have there story told, and shows the history of Pin-up with the best collection of illustrations of the time.

Bunny Yeager’s Photo studies

So here we go, my first real blog. And straight away we go back in time.

Some time ago, I found this old small book called ‘’Bunny Yeager’s Photo studies (winestone no.47)’’ at the internet. Some people may think Bunny who….? Bunny Yeager was a well known model and later on became an expert photographer. Still no clue? She was the one that made most of the Bettie Page photo’s almost everybody knows, and made Bettie famous.

This small book was published in 1960 for the first time, my version is the second abridged edition printing from 1963. With chapters like, Hiring a model, Be your own model, Posing with props, Directing a model and even in that periode already, Photographing nudes, this book gives a nice view how they worked in those days.

In the second chapter, called ”How to be your own model”, Bunny explains the reason why try to take photo’s of yourself. Nowadays everybody is taking selfies, in those days she did use a mirror and a camera with a timer on it. The reason why she did it is simple. She uses the photo’s to try new poses and hair styles, but also to make photo’s when she got assignments, with herself as a model.

How to be your own model

A closeup made by Bunny her self

Some acting as her own model

Study her pose in front of the mirror

 

In chapter 5 ” Posing with props”, Bunny start with explaining what the definition of the word prop means. After that she tells, a prop only has to come in when it add something to a photo. But a prop can be all kinds of things, even sand on the beach can be a prop when a model for instance sits in it and let her hands go through it. A prop can tell the story of what the model thinks or what she is doing. Be precise in selecting a prop, because it can be different for each woman. Were to find the props is easy she says:”where to find them? Everywhere….”. Her personal favorite props are found around the ocean, such as driftwood, odd straw hats, beach towels, etc… The conclusion, props create impressions that are entirely out of proportion to the trouble they are to acquire. The trick is to watch for a prop and use it in as many different ways you can. It always give intrest to your pictures. (and I’m still doing it that way now a days)

Posing with props

Bunny behind the lens

 

At chapter 7 ”How to direct your model” Bunny starts of telling, that it isn’t the model doing things wrong, but it’s the photographer directing wrong. She said a model is like an actress in the same way that the photographer is like an artist. If the model knows what is expected, it’s much easier to play the role she will be in. Models are working with more than one photographer, so they expect the photographer to tell them what  he wants, because all photographers have their own way of doing things. Models aint trained seals, so shouting harder what he wants does not help.

So after reading this book, I can say many things are still the same these days. It’s fun to read about it, writen in the old fashion way. This book with 112pages in it, got lots of old pictures made by Bunny in it. The thing I noticed, there is only one photo of Bettie Page used as an example in te complete book.

Bunny Yeager lived from 13 march 1929 till 25 may 2014 and was born as Linnea Eleanor Yeager. If you like to see more of Bunny take a look at : Bunny Yeager

 

The first glance through my lens

So this is it.

My own blog.

This will be the start of a place were I will try to post blogs about my hobby.

That means, you will find blogs that are all about the american 50’s era. Especially about parts I’m interested in, like car’s and  pin-up’s from that period.

I will try to write about the photoshoots I’m doing at events and with the nice cars and modern day’s pinups. But I will try to write about books and magazines about the cars and pinups.

But first let me introduce myself.

My name is Jerry, you can find my photo’s at the internet under the name of Phantom Photography. I’m from the Netherlands, and living in Haarlem the head capitol of North Holland.

I started photographing the cars from the 50’s, after I bought my first digital camera in 2006. I’m always trying to find an angle you will not suspect, so my pictures stay interesting to watch over and over again.
In 2012 I got my first publication in the Dutch KR8 magazine, and till now many more followed after that first one.

In 2009 I did my first outdoor pin-up shoot and from 2012 even some indoor pin-up shoots in my own living room, that I transformed  into a studio.

So now you have a little background on what I do and what you can expect in my upcoming blogs, from now on. Let’s hope you will enjoy all of it, you can always leave a commend behind, and of course follow me at this blog.

     Jerry