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Art Frahm (1907-1981) was an United
States|American painter of camp|campy pin-up girls
and advertising. Frahm lived in Chicago, Illinois,
and was active from the 1940s to 1960s. Today he
is best known for his "ladies in distress"
pictures involving beautiful young women whose
panties mysteriously flutter to the ground in
public situations, usually causing them to drop
their bag of groceries. In one of Frahm's noted
idiosyncratic touches, celery is often depicted. 

Frahm had adequate technical competence for his
medium, with a style somewhat reminiscent of
Norman Rockwell's although more cartoony. He was
mostly influenced by commercial artist Haddon
Sundblom, with whom Frahm may have worked as an
assistant early in his career.  Frahm's forte was
depicting beautiful young White women, with great
care taken in rendering their legs and figures.
Frahm's depictions of the women's faces are less
successful, often tending towards plastic
doll-like expressions. Minor problems with
perspective and unrealistic depiction of
subsidiary figures and objects are common in
Frahm's work.

Frahm was commercially successful.  His
falling-panties paintings are still considered too
camp to be art, and too juvenile to be erotica.
However this genre (which Frahm seems to have
created) was in demand in the 1950s, and was later
imitated by some other pin-up artists.  The
falling-panties art has a small cult following as
mid-20th century kitsch, or even as fetish art. 
The works are best described with plenty of irony;
James Lileks' clever analysis (see external link
below) of Frahm's work has brought it to the
attention of many on the Internet.

In addition to pin-ups, Frahm created a series of
humorous hobo-themed calendar illustrations. His
advertising art included works for Coca-Cola and
Coppertone.

== See also == 
*Pin-up girl
*List of pinup artists|List of pin-up artists

== References ==
* The Great American Pin-Up, by Charles G.
Martignette and Louis K. Meisel, ISBN
3-8228-1701-5

==External links==
* http://www.lileks.com/institute/frahm/ Ladies in
Distress series with commentary by James Lileks
* http://www.thepinupfiles.com/frahm.html Frahm on
"The Pin-Up Files".
* http://www.mutoworld.com/other.htm History of
pin ups