Vargas, Alberto

(2/9/1896 Peru-12/30/1982 Los Angeles) (Peru / USA)

   Perhaps the most famous of the pin-up artists. His father was a well-known photographer who taught him the airbrush technique. He studied in Switzerland and started his career in fashion illustration, then commercial art. Painted the stars of the Ziegfeld Follies. In 1934 he moved from New York to Hollywood. He dropped the S from his name when he started working for Esquire, where his Varga Girl first appeared in 1940. After splitting from Esquire in 1946, he produced his own calendars and other products. In 1960 he illustrated for Playboy magazine.

   Reproductions: Pin-ups [47 examples]; Martignette, 1996: pp. 281-99 . Varga Girl, October 1940 Esquire; Gabor, 1973: color-plate 15 [C]. Varga Girl, December 1940 Esquire; Gabor, 1973: p. 80 . Varga Girl, January 1946 Esquire; Gabor, 1973: p. 84 [B].

   [b]Source: Reid Stewart Austin, Alberto Vargas: works from the Max Vargas collection (New York: Bulfinch, 2006); Max Allan Collins, Varga girls II, Artist Archives (Tigard, OR: Collectors Press, 1999), 32 p., ill.; Vargas, Varga: the Esquire years: a catalogue raisonne (New York: Alfred van der Marck Editions, 1987); Alberto Vargas and Reid Austin, Vargas (New York: Harmony Books, 1978).