Welcome to part 3 of my series on identifying the original artwork for Too-Faced Quickie Chronicles palettes. Since today's palettes are one-offs, meaning the artist's work was used for only one palette, I'm not going to provide bios for each of them – otherwise this post would be way too long. Instead I'm linking to their information (where available) in their names so you can click on that if you're so inclined. Here they are in no particular order.
First off is Sin in Space (1961), illustrated by Robert Stanley and used for the Future Lovers palette. I spy more prudery from Too-Faced in that they lengthened the model's shirt. So they're against both cleavage and underboob.
(image from fuckyeahpulpfictioncovers.tumblr.com)
Tempted! from 1949 was illustrated by Fred Rodewald and used for the Summer Lover palette.
(image from pulpcovers.com)
Here's She Couldn't Be Good (1951) illustrated by Ray Pease for the Man-Eater palette. I can't quite figure out what's going on in the background in the palette – the size of the pillows is off compared to the original.
(image from goodgirlart.com)
Carnival of Love (1949) illustrated by Ray Johnson was used for the Plaything of Passion palette. Is it me or is the blonde in the background totally giving us the stinkeye?
(image from goodgirlart.com)
The cover of the August 1949 issue of Coronet magazine, illustrated by Wesley Snyder, was used for the Bathing Beauty palette. Here's a funny story about this. In my usual scatterbrained state I couldn't locate the picture I took of this palette in my files so I thought I'd just re-shoot it. When I went to fetch the palette from storage I couldn't find it anywhere. I basically overturned my house looking for it in a panic…only to realize that it was still sitting on the exhibition shelf in the bedroom, as I have yet to dismantle the summer exhibition. Duh.
Anyway, the original Coronet cover oh-so-helpfully advertises its article on "ways to find a husband." And I thought it was tough being a woman now.
(image from ebay.com)
The Life of the Party palette was modeled off of a cover for a December 1940 issue of Love Story Magazine designed by Modest Stein. Unfortunately I couldn't unearth a larger picture of the magazine.
(image from pulpcards.com)
Finally, we have It Happened in Hawaii (1961) created by Tom Miller for the Tropical Tease palette. It looks like Too-Faced interpreted the original image to have a more Caribbean feel since they named it the Spiced Rum palette.
(image from moviepostershop.com)
That's it for today! The series will wrap up in part 4, where I was able to match the artwork but the artists are sadly unknown.
The first part of this series focused on the art of George Gross, who did some of the illustrations used in Too-Faced Quickie Chronicles palettes. Today I'm looking at the work of two more artists whose work was appropriated by Too-Faced: Reginalde Heade and Paul Rader.
The very mysterious British artist Reginalde Heade was responsible for many pulp covers in the 1950s. I say he's mysterious because there's not even a formal record of his birth (he was born in either 1902 or 1903.) According to the author of Good Girl Art, "[Heade] died in 1957, leaving no children, no will and no evidence of his existence other than his signatures on those gorgeous covers he produced. And in 1954, he even stopped signing his work, when the publisher of the books he illustrated went to jail on obscenity charges. Heade produced over 300 covers, most of them impossible to find. He is not listed in any British standard artist references – no one even recalls meeting him." How strange. I wonder if this man was leading a double life, sort of like Ron Swanson/Duke Silver. In any case, while he was best known for his covers for pulp crime books, he also did some covers for "romance" novels.
His cover for Plaything of Passion (1951) was used for Too-Faced's Sex Kitten palette. I was looking for any differences between the two, and it looks like the left side of the pin-up's bra provides a little more coverage than in the original. Who would have thought we'd be more prudish in the early 21st century than in the 1950s?
(image from moviepostershop.com)
Heade's work for the 1950 book Coffin for a Cutie (uh, nice title) was also used for the Bad Girl side of the Too-Faced Good Girl/Bad Girl palette. The Good Girl side is by an unknown artist and used for a book titled No Time for Marriage.
(images from moviepostershop.com)
Sorry for the small picture. Believe it or not, I actually don't own all the Too-Faced Quickie Chronicles, and this was the best stock photo I could find.
(image from urbanoutfitters.com)
Now on to the second artist of this installment, Paul Rader (1906-1986). Fortunately there's a lot more information on him. He got his start painting portraits of well-to-do figures in Detroit in the early '30s. In the early '40s, with a family to support, he moved to New York and began doing advertising illustrations for various companies like General Electric. By the late '50s he had started getting work with top publishing companies, most notably Midwood. It was during this time that he cemented his status as a top illustrator for pulp novels. His wife Edith explained, "[Paul] had the ability to create a desirable woman on canvas…his idols were [George] Petty and [Alberto] Vargas. Paul loved George Petty’s formula for turning each woman he painted beautiful. But Petty’s girls were sometimes anatomically impossible, if those legs were real they would be 9 feet tall. Paul was more of a realist.” (source)
Among the many pulp novel covers he created was for 1961's Sin on Wheels, which was used for Too-Faced's The Makeup Trailer palette. Saucy!
(image from thegreenlemon.com)
I apologize again for the atrociously small picture – The Makeup Trailer is another one I don't own and this was the only stock photo I could find online.
(image from beaute-test.com)
He also did the cover for The Little Black Book (1961), which Too-Faced used for its Sure Thing palette. I like that there is a nod to the book title in the description of the palette. I noticed the same kind of change as in the Sex Kitten palette: Too-Faced covered up the model a bit more by extending her blouse on the right side. Again, I'm not sure why the company chose to do this. Does Too-Faced have a problem with substantial cleavage? I guess they didn't want to sex up the covers too much for fear of offending their consumer base, but honestly, it's a pin-up. They're supposed to be scantily clad.
(image from pulpcovers.com)
So that's it for today's installment. Stay tuned for part 3 where I will be covering more artists.
I was so heartened to find the original artwork for some of The Balm items a few months ago I thought it would be fun to revisit Too-Faced Quickie Chronicles palettes to see if I could dig up the original images for those as well. Part 1 will cover the art created by illustrator George Gross for some incredibly cheesy pulp novels from the late '1940s and early '50s.
George Gross (1909-2003) started out doing illustrations for Winford Publications, including Mystery Novels Magazine and Double Action Western. He then became the top illustrator for Fiction House, cranking out hundreds of illustrations for all manner of pulp novels ranging from sports and war stories to romances. Artistic talent ran in the family; his father, Paul Gross, was a successful fashion illustrator whose main source of income was illustrating the mail-order catalogs for legendary department store Montgomery Ward. While Gross is primarily known for the voluptuous, scantily-clad women that graced the covers of various pulp novels in the 1950s, he continued illustrating up through the '80s for men's magazines and serial action-adventure books.
First up is Love Cheat, 1949:
(image from pulpcovers.com)
Everyone Loves Irene, 1950:
(image from pulpcovers.com)
It was alternatively known as Everybody Loves a Looker.
(image from moviepostershop.com)
These remaining ones do not show Gross's signature on the front as in the previous two, so hopefully the attributions I've found online are correct and these really are his illustrations.
Quickie!, 1950. Seriously, what kind of nickname is that?! It's interesting Too-Faced took the guy completely out of the equation for their cover art.
(image from goodgirlart.com)
The Virgin and the Barfly, 1950. Too-Faced made the woman's dress a little more modest by removing the cut-outs on her midriff (and, which I find hilarious, they also removed the minor camel-toe she had going on – something only a 21st-century audience would notice.)
(image from pinterest.com)
Fast, Loose and Lovely, 1950:
(image from flickr.com)
Hard-Boiled, 1950:
(image from flickr.com)
One Night with Diane, 1950. I like how Too-Faced jazzed up the cover a little by adding some rhinestones.
(image from pulpcovers.com)
Confessions of a Dime-A-Dance Queen, 1951:
(image from moviepostershop.com)
Passion Has Red Lips, 1951:
(image from moviepostershop.com)
Overall, the biggest differences I see between the novel covers and the Too-Faced covers are that some of the colors have changed, most of the images are zoomed in and cropped – I suppose to accommodate the titles and descriptions of the palettes – and finally, the women portrayed smoking no longer have their cigarettes (see Virgin and the Barfly/Royal Flush, Hard-Boiled/Heartbreaker, Confessions of a Dime-a-Dance Queen/Bombshell and Passion Has Red Lips/the Temptress). The man in the Fast, Loose and Lovely/Sweet Tarte images also is missing his nicotine fix. That's a good PR move on Too-Faced's part. While for the most part the images are absolute replicas of the originals, the company was careful to tweak them as needed to suit a contemporary audience, who no doubt would not approve of encouraging such a health hazard. Could you imagine the public outcry?
So that's part 1 of this series. While the lion's share of illustrations used for the Quickie Chronicles were by Gross, there were a few other artists that were chosen so I'll be covering them in the next several parts.