Alberto Vargas: Varga Girls I & II (Artist Archives)
(1999 - Collector's Press)

[-BELOW THE LINE-] 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, you can tell that these focus on the Esquire part of the Vargas works (because the publisher persuaded him to style his name as 'Varga' during that time). Both fall 'Below The Line' here because in each of these two collections, only some of the 14 paintings are 'well-presented', as this site scores them, because the longer works have been turned sideways (five in vol 1 & six in vol 2), so there's just not enough correctly-oriented ones left to make it up onto The List. Know that neither of these two volumes include anything not found in the Vargas books up on The List. (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.)