Eugene "Gene" Bilbrew (June 29, 1923 – May 1974) was an African-American vocal group singer, cartoonist, and "bizarre art" pioneer. As noted in the biography, ''GENE BILBREW REVEALED: The Unsung Legacy of a Fetish Art Pioneer'', he was "the first black career fetish artist in history." Starting in the mid-1950s, he was among the most prolific illustrators of fetish-oriented pulp book covers. In addition to signing his work under his own name, he produced art under a range of pseudonyms, including ENEG ("Gene" spelled backwards), Van Rod, and Bondy.

Early life

Born in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

in 1923, Bilbrew's first career was as a vocal group singer, performing with The Mellow Tones and the Basin Street Boys. ''Hyperallergic Daily'' magazine article, "A Long-Lost Artist of the 1950s Sexual Underground" by Jim Linderman, 5 January 2015 at hyperallergic.com Jan 6, 2015 Pérez Seves asserted that Bilbrew illustrated or produced the storyline for a comic strip series named The Bronze Bomber, which he attributed in error to the African-American newspaper,

Los Angeles Sentinel The ''Los Angeles Sentinel'' is a weekly African-American owned newspaper published in Los Angeles, California. The paper boasts of reaching 125,000 readers , making it one of the oldest, largest and most influential African-American newspapers ...

. In fact, the Bronze Bomber appeared in the Los Angeles Tribune, a different African-American newspaper, under the by-line of William Alexander. One printed page showing the Bomber cartoon from 8 March 1943 was repurposed by artist

Mildred Howard Mildred Howard (born 1945) is an African-American artist known primarily for her sculptural installation and mixed-media assemblages.Baker, Kenneth"Artist Intrigued by Interaction of Materials, Ability to Revise at Will", ''San Francisco Chronicl ...

as the base layer of her

collage Collage (, from the french: coller, "to glue" or "to stick together";) is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole. ...

''Millenials & XYZ #IV'' (2014), which is in the permanent collection of the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation. Four of the six panels are partly or wholly obscured by other elements of the collage. The upper three panels show the source and style. The Tribune began publication in 1941, but the earliest microfilm copies begin in September 1943, and the Bomber does not appear there. By early 1944, Alexander was in the Army. During 1941-1944, March 8 was a Monday only in 1943. Bilbrew was then 19 years old.

Career

Starting in 1950, Bilbrew switched from singing to illustrative art. His first professional art job was for the hugely influential

comics artist A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images). Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comic book illustrators in that they produce both the literary and g ...

Will Eisner William Erwin Eisner (March 6, 1917 – January 3, 2005) was an American cartoonist, writer, and entrepreneur. He was one of the earliest cartoonists to work in the American comic book industry, and his series ''The Spirit'' (1940–1952) was no ...

, on ''

The Spirit The Spirit is a fictional masked crimefighter created by cartoonist Will Eisner. He first appeared June 2, 1940, as the main feature of a 16-page, tabloid (paper size), tabloid-sized, newsprint comic book insert distributed in the Sunday editio ...

'', where Bilbrew took over the back-up series ''Clifford'' — a humor page for small children — after its originator

Jules Feiffer Jules Ralph Feiffer (born January 26, 1929)''Comics Buyer's Guide'' #1650; February 2009; Page 107 is an American cartoonist and author, who was considered the most widely read satirist in the country. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1986 as North- ...

was drafted into the army. Bilbrew's ''Clifford'' was syndicated as a weekly comic strip by

General Features General Features Corporation was a Print syndication, syndication service that operated from 1937 to 1974. It was founded by S. George Little and billed itself in the early 1950 as "America's Leading Independent Syndicate." By 1967, General Feature ...

from 1951 to 1952. The start of Bilbrew's "bizarre art" career came in 1951 through underground artist and pioneer

Eric Stanton Eric Stanton (September 30, 1926 – March 17, 1999; born Ernest Stanzoni Jr.) was an American underground cartoonist and fetish art pioneer. While Stanton began his career as a bondage fantasy artist for Irving Klaw, the majority of his later ...

, whom Bilbrew met while attending

Cartoonists and Illustrators School The School of Visual Arts New York City (SVA NYC) is a private for-profit art school in New York City. It was founded in 1947 and is a member of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design. History This school was started by ...

.Pérez Seves, ''Eric Stanton & the History of the Bizarre Underground'', pp. 37, 38. From then on, Bilbrew focused on fetish art, producing work for notable underground publishers

Irving Klaw Irving Klaw (November 9, 1910 – September 3, 1966), self-named the "Pin-up King",Pérez Seves, ''Eric Stanton & the History of the Bizarre Underground'', p. 28. was an influential Jewish-American merchant of sexploitation, fetish, and Hollywoo ...

, Edward Mishkin, Stanley Malkin, and the Sturman brothers. He also notably produced many illustrations and covers for Leonard Burtman, publisher of '' Exotique'', a

fetish magazine A fetish magazine is a type of magazine originating in the late 1940s which is devoted to sexual fetishism. The content is generally aimed at being erotic rather than pornographic. The most well-known early examples are ''Bizarre'' (1946-1959) p ...

published between 1955 and 1959.

Death

While his career waned with the coming of relaxed censorship laws of the 1960s, his substance abuse worsened in the early 1970s. According to

, Gene Bilbrew died in the back of a

Times Square Times Square is a major commercial intersection, tourist destination, entertainment hub, and neighborhood in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It is formed by the junction of Broadway, Seventh Avenue, and 42nd Street. Together with adjacent ...

adult bookstore A sex shop is a retailer that sells products related to adult sexual or erotic entertainment, such as sex toys, lingerie, pornography, and other related products. An early precursor of the modern sex shop was a chain of stores set up in th ...

in May, 1974.

Other

In 2019, the

National Leather Association International National Leather Association International (NLA-I) is a BDSM organization, based in the United States with chapters in various cities in the United States and Canada. It was founded in 1986 as the "National Leather Association" (NLA), as a nationa ...

established an award named after Bilbrew for creators of animated erotic art.

References

External links

*
Material related to Bilbrew at the Internet Archive
* http://www.rebsart.com/Bios/bilbrew.asp * http://fetish.pornparks.com/bilbrew/ *http://dulltooldimbulb.blogspot.com/2009/03/eugene-bilbrew-african-american-artist.html *http://hyperallergic.com/172180/a-long-lost-artist-of-the-1950s-sexual-underground/ *https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/mar/04/cult-of-the-spankers-pulp-fiction-times-square-smut
Gene Bilbrew, over 240 artworks stored
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bilbrew, Gene 1923 births 1974 deaths African-American artists African-American comics creators American comics creators American erotic artists Artists from Los Angeles BDSM people Fetish artists School of Visual Arts alumni 20th-century African-American people