The first thing that struck me when I opened “The Pin-Up Art of Jay Scott Pike” is the photograph of the artist on the inside. Pike, 81, looks like he could easily pass for a man 30 years younger. Perhaps it’s the gorgeous ladies that he paints that are the secret to his youth. Pike has been painting high quality pin-up pieces for fifty years and shows no signs of slowing down. It was Pike who took over for the legendary Art Frahm at the A.Fox Calendar Company. Frahm is famous for his humorous pinups which featured women whose panties had fallen down to their ankles as stunned and amused men looked on. A couple of examples of Pike’s take on this subject are included in this fantastic book from SQP.

Pike certainly deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as other great pin-up artists like Gil Elvgren, Rolf Armstrong, Zoe Mozert, and Vargas. I’d go so far as to say that Pike’s women are the sexiest out of all these legendary artists. This book features both black & white and full color pieces, everything from sketches to finished paintings. Pike’s work is very soft compared to modern pin-up artist as he comes from a more classical illustration background, but that doesn’t make them any less appealing.

I love the painting called “Bubbles” depicting a platinum-tressed woman in an old fashioned metal bathing tub blowing bubbles playfully. His black & white pieces make dynamic use of lighting which was often eschewed by his other contemporaries. His painting “Be-witching” is one that could easily be in one of SQPs Gallery Girls collections as we see a dark-haired beauty in traditional witch’s hat and broom, dressed in lace bra & panties and nylons.

Pike is comfortable working in any medium, even comic book-style art. I was surprised to learn that Pike did comic work for both Marvel (Atlas comics) & DC comics. In the 50’s he worked on titles such as Jungles Tales, Lorna the Jungle Girl, and Jann of the Jungle.

This is a fantastic collection of classic pin-up art by a true master!

Reviewed by Tim Janson

Rating: 5 / 5