Ruth Deckard was an American pinup artist, known only as Deckard for many years and thought to be a man. It wasn’t until The Great American Pin-up was published in 1996 that the world knew she was a woman. She was a Chicago-based artist. Most of her paintings were published by Louis F. Dow Co. of St. Paul, Minnesota. She painted from the mid-1930s into the 1950s. Her art was not as refined as Alberto Vargas or Petty, but it had a great appeal to the masses. One of her best is named Pin Cushion, a woman lying on her back with a white top and skirt, her legs draped over the top of a round cushion, and four bowling pins leaned against the cushion.

Imagine this time in American history. The 1940s through the 1950s in the United States may just have been the “Greatest Generation’s” glory days. The G.I. bill made the possibility of home-ownership a reality for the average family. Consumerism became the religion that drove the economy. The “baby-boom” created an aura of possibility that permeated the society.

This was the time of the American pin-up illustrators. America’s girl-next-door was reprinted on millions of magazines, calendars, and bill-boards. Inside locker-room doors, G.I.’s barracks, in every garage, restaurant and night-club, movie-house and theater, she was there. Before political correctness existed, the pin-up artist created an image that permeated the popular culture. It wasn’t long before the burgeoning advertising industry recognized the power of the illustrator’s drawings on the American public.

Women found sexuality a new source of power. Clothing became skimpier in the 1940’s, until World War II broke out. Feeling the “American tradition” threatened, families reverted to more conservative values, but the pin-up remained a staple of popular culture. For which I say “Hooray!”