Measuring Up, Happy Holidays, calendar illustration 1963

Gil Elvgren created this pin-up illustration, "Measuring Up, Happy Holidays," to decorate a calendar. Images like this one were hugely popular in the middle of the 20th century. Pin-up art emerged during a time when traditional gender roles were being both reinforced and challenged. On the one hand, after the Second World War, the advertising industry celebrated the ideal of domestic bliss and the nuclear family. On the other hand, there was a rise in female participation in the labor force, new sexual freedoms, and the beginnings of feminist consciousness. Elvgren's images are situated in this nexus of conflicting social forces. Such art was created within a well-established system of production and distribution; as the art historian, we try to analyze the complex set of factors—economic, institutional, and cultural—that shaped this type of work. By examining the media in which it was circulated, the social and cultural values it embodies, and the responses it elicited, we can develop a fuller understanding of its historical significance.