Harry Ekman (

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, 1923 –

Medford, New Jersey Medford is a township in Burlington County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the township's population was 24,497, an increase of 1,464 (+6.4%) from the 2010 census count of 23,033,graphic artist A graphic designer is a professional within the graphic design and graphic arts industry who assembles together images, typography, or motion graphics to create a piece of design. A graphic designer creates the graphics primarily for published, p ...

. His early influences were

Gil Elvgren Gillette Elvgren (March 15, 1914 – February 29, 1980) was an American Painting, painter of pin-up girls, advertising and illustration. Best known for his pin-up paintings for Brown & Bigelow, Elvgren studied at the American Academy of ...

Haddon Sundblom Haddon Hubbard "Sunny" Sundblom (June 22, 1899 – March 10, 1976) was an American artist of Swedish and Finnish descent and best known for the images of Santa Claus he created for The Coca-Cola Company. Sundblom's friend Lou Prentice was t ...

Joyce Ballantyne Joyce Ballantyne (April 4, 1918 – May 15, 2006) was a painter of pin-up art. She is best known as the designer of the Coppertone girl, whose swimming costume is being pulled down by a dog. Early life and career She was born in Norfolk, Neb ...

. Ekman initially apprenticed with Sundblom who was a close family friend and by 1951 for Elvgren.

Career

Ekman studied at the

American Academy of Art The American Academy of Art College is a private art school in Chicago, Illinois. It was founded in 1923 for the education of fine and commercial arts students. The school's Bill L. Parks Gallery is open to the public and features exhibitions ...

and the

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...

. He is best remembered for his

pin-up A pin-up model (known as a pin-up girl for a female and less commonly male pin-up for a male) is a model whose mass-produced pictures see widespread appeal as part of popular culture. Pin-up models were variously glamour models, fashion models ...

and advertising work. Working with Gil Elvgren, he is thought to have penned several of the iconic images attributed to Elvgren. By 1960, Ekman was making a transition from commercial illustration and pin-up art to portraiture. The rest of his career was devoted to gallery works and portraits.

References

Sources

*The Great American Pin-Up, by Charles G. Martignette and Louis K. Meisel, Pin-up artists 1923 births 1999 deaths People from Medford, New Jersey {{US-artist-stub