A visual chronology of all the faces and figures that have occupied Quaintance’s easel would astonish viewers.
Start in the early 1930s, with portraits of diplomats and their wives … separately. Quaintance then became an illustrator for Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. Later, the '30s brought an avalanche of stars of stage and screen, plus volunteers at beauty shows, wanting George to design hairstyles for them. Closing out the decade were lithographs of clever interpretations of male and female forms and faces.
There was also a closet of sorts in the 1930s: an abundance of “glamour nudes who have all it takes to ‘knock 'em dead’ from San Diego to Bangor, from Miami to Seattle.”
In 1940, George painted his first male nude — a rear view of a man casting a net over the ocean. In 1944, former bodybuilder Joe Bonomo began publishing a line of women’s magazines. He hired George as his art director. For each issue, George created the cover, wrote at least one feature about hair, diet, fitness, fashion, or finding your man, and provided illustrations. Meanwhile, he continued to paint celebs of both sexes, in L.A. and Hollywood.
In 1946, Joe Weider, known today as the father of modern bodybuilding, hired George away from Bonomo. What George did for Joe #1, he also did for Joe #2. The Bonomo covers were fashionably dressed women; the Weider covers were scantily clad male bodybuilders.
George moved permanently to L.A. at the end of the '40s, producing male nude #4. The painting Gilda, circa 1950, was George’s final glamour nude. By then, Rancho Siesta was born and only men appeared on George’s easel after that.
What’s missing here? Except for the full-body lithographs, Morning Glory and Flowers at Night, and the faces-only lithos of 1938, George almost never drew a male-female couple. Here are four exceptions; three were magazine covers and the fourth, a painting. One hopes that other examples will surface.
These couples were all created around 1940. Flawless skin, perfect hair, oodles of sex appeal. It’s easy to imagine them evolving into Ozzie and Harriet in the 1950s, or Ward and June Cleaver in the 1960s.
The roller-skaters at the top merit a few extra words, as you may be seeing them for the first time. This recently-surfaced oil painting on a board belonged to a collector in Virgina for many years. It measures 26x20 inches. It currently belongs to a collector in California.