Elvgren Girls I & II (Artist Archives)
(1999 - Collector's Press)

The Artist Archives books are disappointing in having only 14 pin-up examples in each book. That, and two pages of introductory text by Max Allan Collins, is, in each case, the entire book. The reproduction quality is fine and this is probably a great format with which to pore over these paintings, but I'm one to want more than this. Anyway, In each of these two ELVGREN GIRLS collections, a set of 14 paintings are all 'well-presented', as this site scores them. They are all innocent, by today's standards - no salaciousness, and even the one nude is set up as a gag. Taschen's THE LITTLE BOOK OF PIN-UP:ELVGREN scores as the best presentation of the artist's work, despite it's somewhat deminutive 5-x-7-inch size. If you have that volume, obviously all the repeats here will be 'bigger & better', but know that you will actually find ten new images in book I and 12 in book II ! (As part of the Artist Archives releases, these two appear on that series's collective page, but since this pair focuses on a single artist, they get this additional separate entry.)