Pin-up artists of the 40s and 50s usually worked a number of jobs to support themselves and their families. The more successful artists designed magazine covers for different publications or calendars after working freelance for any number of advertising agencies.
Listed below are just a few of the more familiar names in the world of pin-up artists. While this is by no means a complete list, it will help you to begin your research.

Artists:

Rolf Armstrong
Armstrong spent a significant portion of his career searching for the “perfect model”. He believed he had found it in model Jewel Flowers, whom, strangely enough, he later adopted.
He said, "When I paint, I want the living person in front of me. As I look at her again and again and again while I work, I get a thousand fresh, vivid impressions... all the glow, exuberance, and spontaneous joy that leaps from a young and happy heart."

Olivia de Berardinis
Female contemporary pin-up artist Olivia de Berardinis offers original renditions of vintage pin-up models' images. She has published a number of coffee table books filled with her work. Through her website you can purchase postcards and posters with her original images. It is interesting to note that in the book descriptions on her website the individual models featured are named. It could be that a female artist is more aware of the fact that the models are artists as well.

Archie Dickens
The work of Archie Dickens is colorful and sweet. While many of his images portray women in states of partial nudity, they are considered to be more innocent than work of the same kind by other artists.
He says, "It's gradually coming back. I know in America they like my work because they say it is innocent. The Americans throw everything at you and you have got nothing to leave to the imagination. Mine are cheeky but not in any way pornographic.”

Gil Elvgren
Elvgren was said to be the Norman Rockwell of cheesecake. This may be due to the fact that the subjects of his images were usually portrayed in some sort of amusing scenario. Elvgren sought out models with vibrant personalities, usually those new to the modeling business.
To learn more about Elvgren life and works, read Elvgren: His Life and Art by Max Allan Collins and Drake Elvgren.

Shea Foley
Shea Foley is another contemporary pin-up artist. His website sports a “Featured Model” section, which is interesting because it provides some biographical information about the model he is currently working with. Foley’s paintings are done primarily with an airbrush.

Pearl Frush
Frush was one of the top three female pin-up artists in the 1950s and was very highly regarded and respected by the art directors, publishers, sales managers, and printers with whom she worked. However her artwork never gained the popularity of that of some of her colleagues because, given that she worked primarily in watercolor and gouache, it was never produced in large quantities.

Bill Medcalf
Medcalf’s style embodies the “cheesecake” technique completely. He worked to portray the femininity of women outside of their physique, taking in facial expressions and posture.
He said, “I play up the face and expression, making her look pleasant and sweet, with sex appeal but without sophstication, like someone's sweet sister.”

Russ Meyer
Meyer was a prolific pin-up photographer, but his real passion is in film. He has been making films (some pornographic, almost all risqué) for over six decades now and many are critically acclaimed. Meyer was known to always cast the biggest breasts he could find for starring roles in his films; this was said to be his way of “lampooning [American] mores and the way sex is dealt with in our strange society where the female body is looked upon as being more dangerous than either drugs or guns.”
To check out or buy any of Russ Meyer’s films or other merchandise, check out his official website. Click here to find out more about Meyer’s life.

Earl Moran
Moran worked with Marilyn Monroe among other models to create some of the widest varieties of pin-up images of any of his counterparts. He began his career in advertising with Sears-Roebuck and later moved on to magazine artwork.

Zoe Mozert
Mozert is said to be the most famous of the classic female pin-up artists. She is known for rejecting the stereotypical sexy pin-up girl image for a more realistic style, paying attention to individual facial features and characteristics.

Hajime Sorayama
Sorayama is a contemporary pin-up artist with a taste and talent for racier images. He prefers the female nude to his previous subjects (i.e., robots, etc.). Sorayama was born in Japan where he still lives with his wife an two daughters. Visit his website to find out more about his life and passions.

Alberto Vargas
Vargas was one of the most prolific, and certainly one of the most famous and successful, pin-up artists of the 20th century. Vargas was born in Peru but did not waste time in creating a name for himself in the United States. He created magazine covers for Esquire and Playboy, along with dozens of commissioned portraits for movie stars and producers. More biographical information for Vargas can be found at the official Vargas website or in the book The Great Amer ican Pin-up by Charles G. Martignette and Louis K. Meisel.

Websites:

www.thepinupfiles.com – This is a great source for biographical information about the artists.