Spies, Nazis, Beautiful Women, Mobs, Daredevil Explorers, Heroes & Traitors In Incredible Adventure Artworks Of Mort Künstler » Design You Trust — Design Daily Since 2007
Spies, Nazis, Beautiful Women, Mobs, Daredevil Explorers, Heroes & Traitors In Incredible Adventure Artworks Of Mort Künstler – Design You Trust — Design Daily Since 2007

Spies, Nazis, Beautiful Women, Mobs, Daredevil Explorers, Heroes & Traitors In Incredible Adventure Artworks Of Mort Künstler

Mort Künstler is best known today for his vivid paintings of scenes from American history, specifically the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. These works have been featured in books and calendars, and spotlighted in exhibitions around the country.

Less known is Künstler’s early work in men’s adventure magazines, a unique genre that populated newsstands from the 1950s through the late ‘70s. Also known as “men’s sweats,” because most covers featured a sweaty, shirtless guy facing some type of peril, scores of adventure titles vied for a reader’s attention with eye-popping headlines such as “Death Orgy of the Leopard Women” and “Weasels Ripped My Flesh!”

Men’s adventure magazines were the bastard child of the popular pulp magazines of the ‘20s, ‘30s and ‘40s, and many of the artists who worked for the pulps also put paint to canvas for this next evolution, most famous among them being Norm Saunders. Numerous publishers saw an easy buck in the men’s adventure magazines, but none more so than Martin Goodman’s Magazine Management, whose titles included Male, Stag, Action For Men, Battlefield, Complete Man, For Men Only, Man’s World, and many others.

Künstler started working for the men’s adventure magazines shortly after graduating from Pratt Institute in the early 1950s.

“I was a hungry guy, and I was persistent,” he says. “I clicked with several [men’s adventure magazine] publishers, and it almost became a competition for my services. I ended up with Magazine Management mostly because they paid better and offered me as much work as I could handle.”

Künstler also did a lot of work for other publishers, whose titles included True, Argosy, Adventure, American Weekly, and The Saturday Evening Post. The men’s adventure magazines specialized in lurid headlines and even more lurid covers, often depicting over-the-top war stories, daring tales of escape, deadly encounters with dangerous animals, and sex. Most of the stories were pure fiction but presented as fact – an easy way to lure gullible readers. Künstler illustrated them all with a straight face.

“I always tried to make my covers and interior illustrations as believable as possible,” he says. “That was my knack, and instrumental in why the magazines sold so well. And I was rewarded as a result. It worked out very well and I had a lot of fun with it.”

The stories with a sexual component sometimes made Künstler a little uncomfortable, and he admits to turning down a couple of assignments because of that. When he did say yes, however, the results were stunning – sexy in a clean, classical style.

“By today’s standards, none of them are offensive,” Künstler says, “but they were slightly risque. I never painted an illustration in which a woman’s breasts were seen; they were always covered by long hair or a torn blouse.”

More: Mort Künstler, Wikipedia



















































































































If you want more awesome content, subscribe to Design You Trust Facebook page.

More Inspiring Stories

Andy Brase's Eerie and Insanely Appealing Graphics

The Superb Bizarre Vintage Surrealist Illustrations by Alfred Kubin

Dressed Cats: Postcards From The 1950's By Artist Eugen Hartung Published By Alfred Mainzer, Inc.

Spectacular Winning Photos Of WildArt POTY ABSTRACTS Competition

Wonderful Vintage Photos Documented Everyday Life In London In The 1930s

This Artist Creates Super-Abusive And Cute NSFW Greeting Cards

London Designers Create Unique Car-Powered Aquaponics Urban Farm that Grows Vegetables

Stunning Wildlife-Winners From The 2024 Nature’s Best Photography Awards

Tiny Paper Bookmarks Let You Grow Charming Miniature Worlds In Your Books

The Mind's Dream and its Monsters: Creepy Illustrations by Daniel Peacock

Street Messages - A New Book By Nicholas Ganz

Animals In Between Two Worlds In Realistic Paintings By Lisa Ericson

From Chucky to Elon Musk: Mindblowing Colorful Tatoos by Daria Pirojenko

Artist Shows In Comics How She And Her Husband Are Spending Days In Self-Isolation

30 Honest Apps By Viktor Hertz Perfectly Fit In Quarantine Days

Whimsical Cigarette Ad Posters Illustrated by Juan Carlos Huergo in the Early 20th Century

The Merging Art & Science Of Daniel Martin Diaz

Sad, True And Hilarious Revelations About Real Life

Quarantine - Everyone Against The Virus: Brazil Designer Made A Boardgame About Quarantine

More Than Football: A Serie Of 25 Posters To Celebrate The UEFA Euro 2016 Tournament

Meet German Artist Werner Härtl Who Paints with Diluted Cow Dung

"Children Of The Damned": The Superb Artworks Of Ástor Alexander In Classic Sci-Fi And Noir

Comics About An Ice Cube Which Artist Created At The Lowest Point Of His Creative Career

Artist Imagines Famous Cartoon Characters With Human Bodies And The Result Is Bizarre

Jenny On The Job: 8 Posters Of An Ideal Woman Emancipated By World War 2

1959 Cadillac Cyclone Concept, An Indication Of The United States Obsession With Jet Design And Aerodynamics

MINI Japan by Alexa Meade

Casa Rex wins award at HOW Poster Design Awards 2011

Curse of Hospitality: The Superb Fantasy Art Works of Dominik Mayer

This Brave Man Protests Annoying Everyday Things With Funny Signs