The Wonderful World of Bill Ward: King of the Glamour Girls

About this book

Wards world: a titillating voyage into the paradise of pin-up Wards women reek of glamour and glitz. The opera length gloves the diamond earrings that dangle to the shoulders the stiletto heels the tight satin dresses the pronounced cleavage... its all there. Its the best eye candy money can buy. Eric Kroll Bill Wards long prolific pin-up career began during World War II when he created a curvy distraction named Torchy for his fellow soldiers. His taste for impossibly buxom blondesteetering on stiletto heels legs encased in black nylon torsos packed into satin gownsprecisely suited Americas collective postwar sex fantasy and the late 50s mens magazine boom made him the most popular girlie artist in the country. Through the 1960s 70s 80s and 90s Ward broadened his range to embrace a variety of fetish subjects but he never varied from his template of the Ultimate Womanexcept to make her breasts a little bigger her heels a little higher or the satin and leather encasing her a little glossier. The art of Bill Ward (1918-1998) has become so rare and collectible that photographer and veteran TASCHEN editor Eric Kroll has had to trawl through archives across America to assemble this broad selection of Wards very best work. Drawn from over 600 illustrations and interviews with family friends employers and even some of the women who inspired him this 344-page meticulously researched book is the definitive tribute to the great Bill Ward and the perfect companion piece in size and scope to TASCHENs The Art Of Eric Stanton. Text in English French and German