Customer Reviews

Pin Up (Amuses Gueules)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The contents of Robert Harrison's pulp girlie titles, Beauty Parade, Eyeful, Titter, Wink, Whisper and Flirt form the contents of this book They were published between 1942 and 1958 and they mostly showed black and white photos of scantily clad ladies (Harrison did not approve of nudity) in slapstick situations, with copy written to accompany the photos as puerile and clichéd ridden as you will ever read. These photos are all very tame by today's standards. The book reproduces covers and spreads (and some of the down-market ads) from these magazines.

The contents of these titles are basically trash but they do have one thing of interest, their covers, these were paintings rather than photos. Pin-up artist Peter Driben painted hundreds of covers for the six titles and dozens are shown in this book, some other pin-up artists are included as well.

Before you rush out and buy the book you need to know that all the covers and the spreads have been sized slightly bigger than the book. This does not matter too much with the reproduced spreads but all the covers have been ruined because of this enlargement, the title logos and coverlines run of the side of the page.

Two better Taschen cheesecake titles are 'The Rottenberg Collection', seven hundred pages of American pin-ups (mostly nudes) from the forties to the sixties from the collection of Mark Rottenberg. European pin-ups are covered in 'Serge Jacques' by Gilles Neret. Both these titles are far superior to `1000 Pin-Ups' BTW, the book was originally published under the title of 'The Best of American Girlie Magazines' by the same author.

This book is flawed but if you want the covers from Robert Harrison's magazines by famous pin-up artists this is good. One problem is the cropped covers that prevent the reader from seeing the whole effect. The images also cover the full page so there is no white margin to absorb finger marks and other edge damage from use without harming the image. Taschen should have focused on the pin-up artists rather than trying to make a book cover all of Robert Harrison's magazines. By changing focus to the artists they could have dumped the black and white photos and shrunk the book. They then could have published full covers in an oversized book.

Taschen has published the same material in two other books but they are also flawed. First, is the original volume "Girlie Magazines." With 60 fewer pages it is a significantly thicker volume because the pages are thicker. While "1000 Pin-Ups is a good value, in my opinion "Girlie Magazines" remains the better book, with better paper quality. Second, is a small selection of covers from "Girlie Magazines" titled "Pin-Ups" in the Icons Series by Giles Neret. I would just buy a good used version of "Girlie Magazines" for a little more and get 3-4X the illustrations.

When I saw this book, I was expecting (and hoping) to see only pin-up art, and that is all I saw when I quickly browsed through it. However in a more thorough look through, this book is an equal mix of pin-up art and pin-up photography from the 40s and 50s.

The book starts off with a brief history of pin-up magazines in the US during the 40s and 50s. In the usual Taschen style, it is given in English, German and French.

The magazines covered in the book are Wink, Eyeful, Beauty Parade, Flirt and Titter. Each magazine is allocated a section in the book, and start of with full pages replications of some magazine covers, then some black and white pictorials with extremely corny captions. The pictorials are by todays standards tame, and there is almost no nudity.

Pin-ups was worth my while just for the pin-up art, but the pictorials, I thought were not my cup of tea, although it did give me some sort of insight into glamour of the 40s and 50s.

I was wanting to start a library with different pin-up collections and this was the perfect one to start with. It's a small book but has plenty of eye candy. Would buy this for friends researching or interested in Pin-ups.

I just love the old pinup girls.
THe girls look so sexy in the dresses and stockings. And then, that little bit of wind the dress goes up and you see that bit of stocking and garter and if you are lucky her panties.
now you have same in black and white plus same colour one. I think the book could have been a little bigger than it is so that you can lay the book flat on a table so you can read it. But overall the book is grate for my collection.

Pin-ups, by well known publisher of erotica and photo books Taschen, contains generally well scanned and well printed covers of 40's and 50's mens magazines: Wink, Eyeful, Titter, Flirt. And some content from interior pages.

However, Taschen has badly cropped most of the cover images. Many of the images have ~30% of the image area missing. It's been cut off!. Rather than adding extra white space around the images so that the book will offer a good viewing experience, they are run into the binding!

Avoid this poor edition! Instead I suggest The book: The Great American Pin-up.

I purchased this book to help design a tattoo. It was VERY helpful, and now it makes for a nice coffee-table book! There are a few repeats of photos in this book, but that's because they're from different magazine covers, or different months.

If you're a fan of Bettie Page, Dita von Teese, or Mad Men, you'll love this book. It's basically page after page of magazine covers and (cheesy, kitschy, utterly adorable) photo-spreads from your parent's generation.

For true fans of pin-up culture, you'll probably spot a few photos that you've seen floating about elsewhere on the internet, but most of the artwork was entirely new to me...and I write a blog on lingerie ([...])!

The only sad thing is that this book is no longer published, and you'll have to pay an arm and leg for a volume that cost less than $10 a few months ago. Definitely worth picking up if you find an affordable version though!

This book is exactly what you would expect. 1000 pin-ups of many different styles. They are classy yet seductive, and sexy yet sophisticated. This was a very nice addition to the coffee table.

I expected to use the graphics in this book for a project, but the graphics were cropped too much to scan them and tweak them... but the collection of pictures was just great. Lots of images i've not seen, which is always exciting! All in all, a good purchase.