Noir Art | Edwin Georgi

Redbook, “Old Miguel’s Girl” (1956)

I’m shocked by how little information I was able to obtain about this incredible noir artist (honestly, I forgot what life was like before wikipedia). The info I did find was fascinating.

Edwin Georgi was born in 1896 and died in 1964 at the age of 68. He was a pilot in WWI– though I was unable to gather details about his specific tour of duty. Upon returning from the war, he attended Princeton. Eventually he abandoned his education to pursue writing as a full time profession. He was very ambitious, but a turn of fate pushed him another way. He was hired on to write copy for an ad agency, but was persuaded by his employer that he would make a better painter than a writer. Thus his career in illustration began.

Remarkably, he was largely self-taught. He worked his way up the artistic food chain with experience at various ad groups and agencies. His work is known in several national publications; Cosmo, Esquire, Redbook, Ladies’ Home Journal, and The Saturday Evening Post.

Edwin’s style is striking. Very few artists exude the dynamic movement of color as he does. His paintings have a texture that is entirely unique– his staccato strokes seem akin to pointillism, and weave a mesh of breathtaking pallets. Most noir art is obsessed with light and shadow, but Edwin Georgi’s art oscillates betwixt hue and contrast. He’s one of my absolute favorite pulp/pin-up style artists, and I’m grateful to add him to NoirWhale.