Girls on Film – 1940s/50s

A pinup girl or pin-up model is a well-known model, pop-star, film star or other popular female celebrity whose mass produced posters, pictures and prints have really deep world wide appeal as a kind of pop culture.

Pinups or any poster, print or picture of these pinup women and girls are mainly intended for an informal display situation or location.

Many of today’s pin-up girls are now famous glamour models as well as fashion models and of course actresses mainly from films and top television shows. But they always have to be glamorous and sexy with a mass appeal to the male community at large.

A Pinup might also be a reference to a drawing or a painting and even any other type of illustrations done that tries to emulate any of these fabulous photos and a whole art form has been invented and supplied by many pinup artists.

Apparently the term Pinup girl was first recognized in the English language way back in 1941, but it would seem that in practice it has been documented even further back than this to at least sometime in the 1890s and maybe even before that.

Often pinup girl type images can be taken from popular magazines and daily newspapers or they may even be from postcards and older lithographs etc. Many of these pinup girl photos will often appear as calendars as an itme that is usually pinned up in most cases any way.

It then became popular to produce posters of the pinup girls as mass produced products for all the males in the world that crave to have these beauties displayed in their homes or workplace. As you might imagine these soon became an instant hit with any man that saw them!

Over the years many of the pinups were in fact really good photographs of top celebrities who were also considered some of the best sex symbols in their day. Probably one of the most famous and without doubt the most popular of these early pinup girls was Betty Grable. And if you are little older you may know that her pinup poster was everywhere in the lockers world war two GIs.

Other famous pinups were often real artwork and they would depict an idealized version of what many at the time thought was the typical really beautiful or most attractive woman of the time. Perhaps one of the best early examples of the second type above was the very famous Gibson girl. Also at this time many other new pinup artists became famous for the work that they did. Viva the pinup girl. Pinup girls forever!!