Earle K. Bergey (August 26, 1901 – September 30, 1952) was an American artist and illustrator who painted

cover art Cover art is a type of artwork presented as an illustration or photograph on the outside of a published product such as a book (often on a dust jacket), magazine, newspaper ( tabloid), comic book, video game (box art), music album (album art), ...

for thousands of pulp fiction magazines and

paperback books A paperback (softcover, softback) book is one with a thick paper or paperboard cover, and often held together with glue rather than stitches or staples. In contrast, hardcover (hardback) books are bound with cardboard covered with cloth, lea ...

. One of the most prolific pulp fiction artists of the 20th century, Bergey is recognized for creating, at the height of his career in 1948, the iconic cover of Anita Loos's '' Gentlemen Prefer Blondes'' (1925) for Popular Library. Bergey was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to A. Frank and Ella Kulp Bergey. He attended Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts from 1921 to 1926. He initially went to work in the art departments of Philadelphia newspapers including '' Public Ledger'', and he drew the comic strip ''Deb Days'' in 1927 for the

Public Ledger Syndicate The Public Ledger Syndicate (known simply as the Ledger Syndicate) was a syndication company operated by the Philadelphia '' Public Ledger'' that was in business from 1915 to circa 1950 (outlasting the newspaper itself, which ceased publishing in ...

. Early in his career, Bergey contributed many covers to the pulp magazines of publisher Fiction House. By the mid-1930s, Bergey made a home and studio in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and he married in 1935. In the late 1940s, he also started to sell cover illustrations to the rapidly expanding paperback book industry. Bergey died suddenly and unexpectedly on September 30, 1952 in New Hope, Pennsylvania with family at his side. Cause of death according to his death certificate was acute coronary thrombosis due to coronary artery disease.

Pulp magazines

Throughout the 1930s, Bergey worked freelance for a number of publishing houses. His eye-catching paintings were predominantly featured as covers on a wide array of pulp magazines, including romance (''Thrilling Love'', ''Popular Love'', ''Love Romances'') as well as detective, adventure, aviation, and Westerns. Bergey also illustrated mainstream publications during this time, such as '' The Saturday Evening Post'', and produced cover art for fitness magazines. Along with pin-up painting peers such as Enoch Bolles and

H. J. Ward Hugh Joseph Ward (March 8, 1909 – February 7, 1945) was an American illustrator known for his cover art for pulp magazines. He is noted especially for his paintings for ''Spicy Mystery'', ''Spicy Detective'', and other titles published by Harry ...

, Bergey was one of the first prominent American pin-up artists, contributing hundreds of covers to influential magazines including ''Gay Book Magazine'', ''Pep Stories'', and ''Snappy''. During the 1940s, Bergey continued to paint covers for romance, sports, and detective pulp magazines, and he began working on a number of science fiction magazines, including

Standard Magazines Thrilling Publications, also known as Beacon Magazines (1936–37), Better Publications (1937–43) and Standard Magazines (1943–55), was a pulp magazine publisher run by Ned Pines, publishing such titles as ''Startling Stories'' and ...

's '' Strange Stories'', ''

Startling Stories ''Startling Stories'' was an American pulp science fiction magazine, published from 1939 to 1955 by publisher Ned Pines' Standard Magazines. It was initially edited by Mort Weisinger, who was also the editor of ''Thrilling Wonder Stories'', S ...

'', and ''

Captain Future Captain Future is a pulp science fiction hero — a space-traveling scientist and adventurer —originally published in his namesake pulp magazine from 1940 to 1944. The character was created by editors Mort Weisinger and Leo Margulies. The maj ...

'', and later for ''

Fantastic Story Magazine ''Fantastic Story Quarterly ''was a Pulp magazine, pulp science fiction magazine, published from 1950 to 1955 by Best Books, a subsidiary imprint of Standard Magazines, based in Kokomo, Indiana. The name was changed with the Summer 1951 issue to ...

''. Bergey's fine art training and salient gift for depicting anatomy made him a go-to artist across a diversity of genres that required scenes with dramatic movement, from photo-realistic sports portraits of famous athletes including

Mickey Cochrane Gordon Stanley "Mickey" Cochrane (April 6, 1903 – June 28, 1962), nicknamed "Black Mike", was an American professional baseball player, manager and coach. He played in Major League Baseball as a catcher for the Philadelphia Athletics and Detro ...

, Lou Gehrig, and Jim Thorpe to his signature Bergey Girls that appeared on risque pulps throughout the Depression and in science fiction scenarios from World War II. Bergey's science fiction covers, sometimes described as "Bim, BEM, Bum," usually featured a woman being menaced by a Bug-Eyed Monster, alien, or robot, with an heroic male astronaut coming to her assistance. The bikini-tops he painted often resembled coppery metal, giving rise to the phrase "the girl in the brass bra," used in reference to this sort of art. Visionaries in TV and film have been influenced by Bergey's work.

Gene Roddenberry Eugene Wesley Roddenberry Sr. (August 19, 1921 – October 24, 1991) was an American television screenwriter, producer, and creator of ''Star Trek: The Original Series'', its sequel spin-off series ''Star Trek: The Animated Series,'' and ''Sta ...

, for example, provided his production designer for ''

Star Trek ''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the eponymous 1960s television series and quickly became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. The franchise has expanded into vari ...

'' with examples of Bergey's futuristic pulp covers. The artist's illustrations of scantily-clad women surviving in outer space served as an inspiration for

Princess Leia Princess Leia Organa is a fictional character and one of the main protagonists in the ''Star Wars'' franchise, portrayed in films by Carrie Fisher. Introduced in the Star Wars (film), original ''Star Wars'' film in 1977, Leia is princess of th ...

's slave-girl outfit in '' Return of the Jedi'',

Rikke Schubart Rikke Schubart (born November 16, 1966) is a Danish author and film scholar, who teaches at Institute for the Study of Culture at University of Southern Denmark in Odense, Denmark. Her research is on emotions, gender, and genre in film and televi ...

, ''Super Bitches and Action Babes: The Female Hero in Popular Cinema, 1970-2006'', page 225, McFarland & Co., 2007, and

Madonna Madonna Louise Ciccone (; ; born August 16, 1958) is an American singer-songwriter and actress. Widely dubbed the " Queen of Pop", Madonna has been noted for her continual reinvention and versatility in music production, songwriting, a ...

's conical brass brassiere.

Paperbacks

In 1948, Bergey made the transition to the rapidly expanding paperback book industry along with skilled pulp artists like

Rudolph Belarski Rudolph Belarski (May 27, 1900 – December 24, 1983) was an American graphic artist known for his cover art depicting aerial combat for magazines such as ''Wings'', '' Dare Devil Aces'', and ''War Birds''. He also drew science fiction covers for ...

, whose work is often confused with Bergey's. While continuing to paint pulp covers until his death, Bergey sold illustrations to at least four leading paperback publishing houses, including Popular Library and Pocket Books. His art graced the covers of dozens of novels and helped to sell millions of volumes. His paperback cover illustrations were as diverse as his work for the pulps. In addition to his work on the 1948 Popular Library edition of Anita Loos's '' Gentlemen Prefer Blondes'', Bergey painted cover art for well-known authors from Émile Zola to the Western master, Zane Grey, whose 1951 Pocket Books edition cover painting for '' The Spirit of the Border'' is a Bergey classic. Many of his paperbacks are now cult classics, some featuring hidden self-portraits.

References

*Bergey, Joshua David (2019). "

ulp ULP may refer to: Science and technology * Unit in the last place in computer science * File extension for CadSoft/Autodesk EAGLE User Language Program Organisations * ''Université Louis Pasteur'', Strasbourg, France * Former United Labour Part ...

Art is Not a Mirror: When the Male Gaze Determines the Defining Narrative of American Pulp Fiction Art." National Conference of the Popular Culture Association: Washington, DC. *Bergey, Joshua David (2014). "Doubling in Murder: American Pulp Art and the Visual Legacy of Earle K. Bergey." Maine College of Art, Department of Illustration: Portland, ME. * Di Fate, Vincent. ''Infinite Worlds: The Fantastic Visions of Science Fiction Art, with Foreword by Ray Bradbury''. New York, NY: Penguin Studio, 1997. . *. *. * *Scott, Alison M (1997). "They Came from the Newsstand." Primary Sources and Original Works. 4:1-2: 39–46. doi: 10.1300/J269v04n01_04. * Strickler, Dave. ''Syndicated Comic Strips and Artists, 1924-1995: The Complete Index.'' Cambria, CA: Comics Access, 1995. .

External links

*
14 covers by Bergey
* ttp://www.earlekbergey.com Official site for the artist Earle K. Bergey - coming soon {{DEFAULTSORT:Bergey, Earle K. 1901 births 1952 deaths 20th-century American illustrators Artists from Philadelphia Pin-up artists American science fiction artists Pulp fiction artists

Pulp magazines

Paperbacks

See also

References

External links