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Medcalf's pin-up work, like Elvgren's, set standards
for artistry and imagery for his contemporaries. When
Medcalf joined the staff of resident artists at Brown and
Bigelow on March 18, 1946, he hoped to get some pointers
from his two idols, Elvgren and Norman Rockwell, who were
both contributors to the firm. When he met both men at a
Christmas party that year, he was therefore stunned and
flattered when they asked him how he imparted such a
finished glow to his work.
Medcalf painted more than twenty years of beautiful
pin-ups for Brown and Bigelow, handling all the special-project
calendar commissions for their most important customers.
For his first assignment in 1947, for Kelly-Springfield's
Celebrity Tires, Medcalf painted a beautiful girl walking
her dog on an estate, with a sports car in the background.
Then, for Dorman. Products (auto parts manufacturers),
he created a breathtaking picture of a girl and her dog
having a picnic in front of an automobile. While still
handling these special pin-up projects, Medcalf also went
on to deliver one winner after another to a new, more
traditional Brown and Bigelow series, The Baseball Hall
of Fame.
In 1949, Medcalf did his first pin-up "novelty
fold" specialty item for the firm: a booklet that
unfolded four times, each time revealing a larger pin-up
image, the last being an oversized picture with an
advertising message. Named one of the company's top five
pin-up artists in their 1951 business Builder, Medcalf
released his first pin-up hanger the next year. Entitled
Beautiful Morning, this depiction of a young girl just
waking up proved to be a best-seller. The versatile
Medcalf took on the responsibility for the company's
American Boy calendar series in 1953, and he also created
many best-selling evening-gown subjects for their glamour
line.
In 1940 and 1941, he worked in the art department of
the United States Treasury's Bureau of Engraving and in
1942, he joined the Navy as a gunners mate.
During his tenure at Brown and Bigelow, Medcalf worked
first at the company's headquarters, then out of his home
studio in a suburb of St Paul, often using his family and neighbours as models. In a September 1950 article for a
local art school magazine, he said this about his work:-
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"I look for the things that make a girl
appear feminine, outside of her face and figure, that
is, her pose, expression, the way she fixes her hair
the way she handles her eyes, her buttons and bows"
"I play up the face and expression, making
her look pleasant and sweet, with sex appeal but
without sophistication, like someone's sweet sister"
Bill Medcalf
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