K.O. Munson

When Earl Mac Pherson went into service, K.O. Munson was drafted from the Brown & Bigelow stable to take over the successful "Artist's Sketchbook" series. Sticking to the pastel medium, Munson replaced Mac Pherson's Petty smooth pin-ups with sharper, crisper lines, though the soft curves of his bright-eyed beauties were definitely appealing.

Soft-spoken sportsman Munson had been (and continued to be) a successful commercial artist; over the years his clients included Lucky Strike, Goodyear, Motorola, U.S. Rubber, Mars Candy and Sealy Mattress (an ad for the latter featured a fetching Munson beauty lounging on a cloud). Moving from Chicago to St. Paul in 1936, Munson was a top Brown & Bigelow pin-up artist throughout the 1940s.

He spent the '50s back in Chicago, where he opened his own studio, continuing to create pretty girl art for various companies. As painted pin-ups went out of vogue, he had the foresight to shift into shooting cheesecake photo layouts for such men's magazines as Modern Man and Figure.

K.O. Munson