There were two ways to show naked ladies on paperback covers; one was to make her some kind of exotic, foreign native or, have her be an artists' model. Just the term alone conjures up nudity. While still not showing 'everything', they could go further than others, for example, see the nice Berkley Books cover on the left. The other trick was to show the model, say from the back, and then the work of 'art' from the front. Paintings in paintings didn't count.
Another nice Berkley cover, this one by Robert Maguire. Here is the most common and typical artist cover with him looking at her front and the rest of us at the back. This is where imagination comes in. | |
This is the perfect example of showing the 'piece of art' as the nude, and full frontal nudity at that (well, almost). This was on par with the air brushed nudes in artist's magazines at the time. | |
A homerun!! All three bases. The GGA girl, the nude model and the nude painting all done by Rudolph Belarski. Popular Library covers were never crude but they did manage to unbutton 2 or 3 buttons. | |
Here is the mirror again, like in the turn of the Century (19th) French Postcards we've seen before. He's not looking at the mirror and neither is she, so it must be there for you and me. | |
While not exactly artists' models, what better place for an 'arty' cover. Dali would have been proud. |