George Petty was one of the top “cheesecake” illustrators of the 30s and 40s. He began his career with a series of cartoons featuring beautiful girls and their far from handsome beaus. His work coined the term “Petty Girls” to describe the carefully airbrushed girls with brilliant smiles and sexy poses. He left Esquire, to be replaced by Alberto Vargas who we will be featuring here soon, and became a freelance commercial artist. His girls soon ended up gracing magazine ads and calendars for such unlikely products as Tung-Sol Radio Tubes and the aptly named, Ridgid Tools.

The exaggerated almost comic nature of these illustrations is extraordinary, especially since they were made with the most serious intention. It’s like a the 40s housewife on acid, a lot of acid. Except being such an eye candy and inspiration for nightmares, it’s a quite extraordinary example of American perception of women at the peak of the cold war.