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Contact: Sally Hayden or Stephen H. Goddard,Spencer Museum of Art, (785) 864Ð0135

Spencer Art Museum unwraps WWII pinups by Vargas on Sept. 29

LAWRENCE -- Eighty-four original watercolors from the Esquire magazine archives will have their first public exhibition in "Alberto Vargas: The Esquire Pinups," opening Sept. 29 at the Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas. The exhibition continues through Dec. 30.

This is the first full-scale public display of watercolors selected from the nearly 40,000 photographs, illustrations, paintings, cartoons and original issues of the magazine from 1933 to 1977 comprising the Esquire Collection. The collection came to KU in 1980, according to Steve Goddard, Spencer senior curator who organized the exhibition with Maria Elena Buszek, KU doctoral student from Santa Monica, Calif.

Previously the watercolors were available in the Spencer Museum Print Room to students of material culture, feminist historians, collectors, tattoo artists, designers and those who find in the art a nostalgic connection to World War II, Goddard said noting some of the research interest in the collection.

Goddard will give the Tour du Jour of the exhibition at 12:15 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 4, in the gallery. Other programs with the exhibition will include Thursday evening lectures, essays online, a Sunday film series in November and a Nov. 15 performance by Chuck Berg's Esquire Jazz Quartet, all at the museum.

Buszek will speak on "War Goddesses: Women, World War II, and the Vargas Girl," at 7 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 11 in the Spencer Museum of Art Auditorium. Buszek, an assistant professor at Santa Monica Collge, is researching the cultural impact of the pinups, particularly from a feminist perspective.

Maureen Honey, professor of English and women's studies at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, will speak on "The Pin-Up Art of Alberto Vargas: Erotic Representations of American Life" at 7 p.m. Nov. 1. Complete schedules are available at the museum or at Spencer's Web site under programs and events .

During World War II, the Varga Girl became a significant morale booster for U.S. troops and was synonymous with the women of the war effort stateside. It has been said that the Vargas Girl was as important to the war effort as Glenn Miller and Victory Bonds.

For others, the Vargas Girl is another symbol of a long history of oppression of women and of socially sanctioned pornography. She joins Barbie as evidence for many of a nation lost in its own vanity and materialism. Essayists Susie Bright, Andrea Dworkin, Maureen Honey, and the exhibition curators, Buszek and Goddard, address these and other issues in writings available on the museum's web pages.

The varied responses are all part of the the growing interest in Alberto Vargas and the art of the pinup. Goddard says, "The time is right to share a large selection of this material with a general audience. We do this knowing that reactions will be diverse, but we believe that there is no better place than the university forum to offer these historical works as catalysts for examination of our culture, how it has changed in the past 50 years and how it might continue to change."

Alberto Vargas (1896-1982) was born in Peru. Educated in Europe, he came to New York, first finding work with Florenz Ziegfeld's Follies and later in the movie industry in Hollywood at Fox and Warner Brothers. This was followed by five years of intense work producing pinups for Esquire, and finally working as a pinup artist for Playboy magazine.

Although they ended in lawsuits and bitterness, the Esquire years were the high point of Vargas's career. The Vargas or "Varga Girl" -- Esquire preferred a shortened version of Vargas's name, to which they eventually claimed legal ownership -- boosted Esquire sales and sales of Vargas Girl products netted millions for the magazine as well as fame for the artist.

Public events

Spencer Museum of Art Gallery hours
 • Tues., Wed., Fri., & Saturday 10 a.m.Ð5 p.m.
 • Thurs. 10 a.m.Ð9 p.m.
 • Sun. NoonÐ5 p.m.
 • Galleries closed Monday
No admission fee. Suggested donation: $3