EVERYDAY PICTURES FOR MILLIONS

Most Americans--including some who would insist that art gives them a pain--like pretty pictures on calendars. On the opposite page are reproduced three of the biggest-selling calendar pictures for 1952. All are published by the St. Paul firm of Brown & Bigelow (TIME, July 5, 1948), which supplies half of the 120 million commercial calendars made in the U.S. each year. These three paintings reflect the three most popular categories of calendar art:

1. Girls. Chicago's Gillette Elvgren, a whiz in this field, did Fresh Breeze. He says that all his girls are "the Minnesota type, naive and fresh"--eyes set wide apart, nose pert and short, lips full--small waist, long legs, full bust--age, preferably under 21 --and "they've got to be alive." Elvgren's stereotyped girls may not come alive on canvas, but they do in people's minds.

2. Landscapes. These have the advantage of being suitable for kitchens, and of staying sunny on the darkest days. The Good Old Days is a first try at calendar art by a Hollywood scene painter named Paul Detlefsen. It owes something to Currier & Ives, and depends a good deal on memories to invest its neat detail with a breath of life.

3. Human Interest (which ranks ahead of Outdoor Life & Sports, Humor and Religion in popularity). Chicago's Harry Anderson, who has done a series of annual calendar celebrations of American boyhood, painted Hurry Up. Using opaque water-colors (because he is allergic to turpentine), he makes pictures that are just true enough to life and no more imaginative than the market calls for.

Although the best calendar art cannot be compared with the best serious painting, it shows far more technical facility and clarity of purpose than the efforts of merely average "fine artists." And these calendar pictures--apparently enjoyed by millions-- inevitably open the door to an understanding of art in general.

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