Gil Elvgren's Private Stock

This book is a fascinating insight to a side of commercial art that rarely is examined — the artist's reference collections. We like to think that all of the pinup greats worked from life when, in fact, most worked from photographic references as any good commercial artist would. As a long-time fan of Elvgren's work, I found this collection of images rather interesting from a personal standpoint. These images were from his own, private, reference collection; and weren't necessarily intended for a finished piece. Those looking for a collection of images that can easily be identified with Elvgren's finished artwork will probably not enjoy this collection. I've read a couple of negative comments about this book and I think the commentor(s) were missing the point of why this collection was published. Personally, I thoroughly enjoy and appreciate the value of this book and am very happy to be able to add it to my library.

It is a great and interesting bit of Gil Elvgren's "Private Stock ". The only imperfect thing about it is that I wish some of the photos were larger. Just in case you are unaware of who Gil Elvgren is and what he does and what his "Private Stock" is, here is some further information. In the era of great illustrators, which began fading because of the camera, along with Norman Rockwell, J. C. Leyendecker, Haddon Sundblom and the more serious book Illustrators such as Dean Cornwell/ Pruett Careter Mead Schaeffer, Walt Everett and any others Elvgren focused on lovely, innocent (and some not so innocent), female nudes often in whimsical situations. Elvgren `s work was mostly advertising, calendars, and whimsical magazine art, along with some book and other forms of pinup work. All of those I mention above did much the same ting but they did far more serious art, closer to and often art superior to that shown in art galleries as "fine art" in that era, in which mastery of excellence in figurative art belonged to illustrators many of which in the coming years became some of the best fine artists in America. Elvgren worked mostly from live models and photo's taken either by him or professional photographers under his direction for poses. His "Private Stock" is an array of literally hundreds of photos of nudes and semi-nudes, some gorgeously and bountifully endowed with female anatomical giftedness as well as others with the same degree of figurative perfection, but perhaps in need of his skills of turning a less than lovely face into that of a post teen age beauty. In paragraph 2 above, are the names of a few of my favorite illustrators, which can be found here at Amazon as well as elsewhere in books such as: The Illustrator in America By Walt Reed, and J. C. Leyendecker and many others. A note of perhaps interest: In my years of study of among other majors, architecture and art, between under grad school and Grad school, I spent 2.5 years and 1500 hours of figure and anatomy at the American Academy of Art, the studio's of Haddon Sundblom were just a few blocks away from the Academy, and some of us whose figure drawing work impressed him, were often invited to stop by and apprentice for a few days every now and then. It was a great opportunity for those who were invited and it gave us a good look at an era coming to a slow and then sudden end, the end for all practical purposes of that sort of pinup art and illustration art and the era of the camera. Sad day for many.

The book arrived this morning and I simply can't put it down... I love the photos and the look/design and feel of this book. Beautiful reproductions of some killer photos. I absolutely love it! A must for any fan of Vintage Pin-Ups. Highly recommended.

as someone who draws portraits, this book is very useful reference and as a Elvren's admirer, it's also an interesting book. The price is a little up there but I think the book quality is really good. But I would only reccommend this book to only those who are real fans of the artist or you are an artist who also draw/paint yourself

This review is not directed at the seller or Amazon. In my opinion this book is a rip off. I thought I was getting reference photo's for his calendar work. What I got was an assortment of old nude photos. I have seen some of his reference photos and they are great. I wouldn't have paid $5.00 for this book. I was interested based on ads I had seen about the book.

I've been a fan of Elvgren's pin-up work for many years. And this book of Elvgren's photos is quite good in adding another layer about Elvgren's work as an artist of the female form. In looking through this book of his photographs I noticed something peculiar. There's an IDENTICAL PHOTO in the Elvgren book that's also in the book "Hollywood Nudes In 3-D!", by Suzanne Lloyd, published in 2004 by Tess Press/Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers. This is a book of normal and 3-D photographs (3-D glasses included) which were taken by well known early actor Harold Lloyd. So how can the same photo--along with a few others that are suspiciously almost identical to photos in the Elvgren book--be taken by Harold Lloyd too? In the Lloyd book there's no mention of Elvgren anywhere. Did Lloyd and Elvgren know each other through photography? They both were enamored with 3-D/stereoscopic photography and used a number of models and actresses from Hollywood. Did they share their work with each other--hence a mix-up of exactly whose photo it is? But I do find it a bit disturbing that the identical photo--a girl kneeling on a pillow facing to the left with a large bow wrapped around her middle--is in two books by two different photographers--both claiming that the picture in question is their photograph. Can any Elvgren fan (or Lloyd fan) shed any light on this seeming impossibility?

Really nice book - excellent construction and content. My GF loved it as a gift (she's a fan of Gil).

Just to be clear - these slides were not taken by Elvgren, they're from his personal collection of commercial pinup slides. From my perspective as a stereo photo fan, it's disappointing that no stereo slides are reproduced properly in stereo (either side-by-side or anaglyph). Obviously that's a bit of a niche market, and would probably mean they'd need to pack in a stereo viewer, but it's really too bad. A fair number of these pictures were taken with a stereo camera and were meant to be seen in 3-D.

This is a great pinup colletion of reference models. It's not perfect, as I would have given it 4 1/2 stars if I could have. Some pages are just a small slide instead of it being enlarged. There is some wasted space on some of the pages, as it could have been edited better. The price might be a sticking point for some, but I did get it when it was on sale and it was worth that price to pick-up. But if you enjoy classic pinups then this book is for you.

this book of Elgrens photographs gives an insight into the background images for his pin up drawings. From that perspective the book is really useful.

Aus einer anderen Zeit, und wie immer schön zu sehen, wie und vor allem DAS auch andere Menschen der wundervollen Darstellung des Weiblichen verfallen sind - man ist nicht alleine :-)

帯がデザインの一部なので、保管にちょっと工夫がいるかも。Elvgrenの想像上の女性たちの方が、もちろん美しくスタイルも良いのですが、リアルはリアルで良いですね。何の元なのか、という解説はありません。フルカラー写真約１６７点がキャプションなしに並んでいるだけです。

The pictures in the book are fine. Some very pretty women featured. However I was hoping that the photographs feature would have been taken by Gil and this is the first time they've been published instead they seem to be ones he bought for his collection. Whilst I do believe that Gil did own the slides, this feels like a cynical attempt to use his name to sell a book of pictures that can be found elsewhere. I'm glad i waited until the price dropped as far as it did.