Rolf Armstrong (April 21, 1889 – February 22, 1960) was an American commercial artist specializing in glamorous depictions of female subjects. He is best known for his magazine covers and calendar art. In 1960 the New York Times dubbed him the “creator of the calendar girl.” His commercial career extended from 1912 to 1960, the great majority of his original work being done in pastel.

Personal life

Rolf Armstrong was born John Scott Armstrong in

Bay City, Michigan Bay City is a city in Bay County, Michigan, United States, and its county seat. The population was 32,661 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The city is located just upriver from the Saginaw Bay on the Saginaw River. It is the princip ...

. His parents were Richard and Harriet (Scott) Armstrong. His father owned the Boy-Line and Fire Boat Company, comprising fire boats and passenger ships on the Great Lakes, including one that served the Chicago World's Fair in 1893. Due to increasingly financial difficulties, the family left Bay City in 1899 and moved to

Detroit, Michigan Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...

. Rolf had two brothers and a sister, all at least twenty years older than himself. After his father's death in 1903, Rolf lived for about three years with his eldest brother, William, in

Seattle, Washington Seattle ( ) is the List of municipalities in Washington, most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the List of Unit ...

. There he became close to William's son, Robert Armstrong, who later achieved fame as a film and television actor best known for his role in King Kong (1933). Rolf's brother, Paul, also had a brief but successful career as a New York playwright (1907-1915). After studying in Chicago and living and working in New York for several years, Rolf married Claire Louise Frisbie, a free-lance writer, in 1919. They had no children. Around 1930 they moved to Bayside, Queens, where Rolf had recently designed and built a house on an inlet of

Little Neck Bay Little Neck Bay is an embayment in western Long Island, New York, off Long Island Sound. Little Neck Bay forms the western boundary of the Great Neck Peninsula, the eastern boundary of which is Manhasset Bay. The political boundary between ...

. Rolf had learned to sail as a child and kept as many as eight sailboats at this property. Among these was ''Mannequin'', a decked sailing canoe he designed and raced, twice winning the

American Canoe Association The American Canoe Association (ACA) is the oldest and largest paddle sports organization in the United States, promoting canoeing Canoeing is an activity which involves paddling a canoe with a single-bladed paddle. In some parts of Euro ...

br>Elliott Trophy (1932, 1934)
About 1935 Rolf and Louise left Bayside for Southern California in an apparent attempt to benefit from the movie industry. In 1939 they obtained a divorce, after which Louise immediately married Robert Armstrong. In 1939 Armstrong moved back to Manhattan, taking up residence for the next twenty years in the

Hotel des Artistes Hotel des Artistes is a historic residential building located at 1 West 67th Street, near Central Park West, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Completed in 1917, the ornate 17-story, 119-unit Gothic architecture, Gothic-style ...

. In the 1950s he traveled extensively, visiting Europe,

Tahiti Tahiti (; Tahitian language, Tahitian , ; ) is the largest island of the Windward Islands (Society Islands), Windward group of the Society Islands in French Polynesia, an overseas collectivity of France. It is located in the central part of t ...

, and

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...

. After several trips to the latter, he retired there permanently in late 1959. Shortly after this move, he suffered a mild heart attack, followed by a fatal attack on February 22, 1960. In accordance with his wishes, his ashes were scattered from an overlook on

Nuʻuanu Pali Nuuanu Pali is a section of the windward cliff (''pali'' in Hawaiian) of the Koolau mountain located at the head of Nuuanu Valley on the island of Oahu. It has a panoramic view of the windward (northeast) coast of Oahu. The Pali Highway ( Hawai ...

. In 1997, surviving friends and admirers arranged for placement of a grave marker at the Armstrong family plot in Elmwood Cemetery, Detroit, Michigan.

Education

Rolf enrolled in the School of the

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the United States. The museum is based in the Art Institute of Chicago Building in Chicago's Grant Park (Chicago), Grant Park. Its collection, stewa ...

in 1907 under the name Jack Armstrong. One of his four original roommates was Thomas Hart Benton, the noted painter and muralist. Armstrong moved to

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

immediately upon graduation in 1911 and lived for a time in the Lincoln Arcade where he attended classes held by

Robert Henri Robert Henri (; June 24, 1865 – July 12, 1929) was an American painter and teacher. As a young man, he studied in Paris, where he identified strongly with the Impressionists, and determined to lead an even more dramatic revolt against A ...

at the Henri School of Art. It was around this time that he changed his name to Rolf. Armstrong traveled to

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

in 1919 to study at the

Académie Julian The () was a private art school for painting and sculpture founded in Paris, France, in 1867 by French painter and teacher Rodolphe Julian (1839–1907). The school was active from 1868 through 1968. It remained famous for the number and qual ...

, and in 1921 he went to

Minneapolis Minneapolis is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 429,954 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the state's List of cities in Minnesota, most populous city. Locat ...

to study calendar production at

Brown & Bigelow Brown & Bigelow is a company based in Saint Paul, Minnesota, that sells branded apparel and promotional merchandise. History The company was founded in 1896 by Herbert Huse Bigelow and Hiram Brown. On June 24, 1924, Bigelow was convicted fo ...

Magazine covers

Armstrong's first known published work is the cover of Judge magazine from January 27, 1912, also known as “A Live Wire.” Throughout this decade he built a reputation as a cover artist, producing over sixty covers for a variety of magazines including Metropolitan, Puck, Every Week, American Magazine, and The Stewart Lever. During the 1920s Armstrong achieved considerable commercial success creating a total of 65 portraits of silent screen actors (all but one female) for the covers of ''

Photoplay ''Photoplay'' was one of the first American film fan magazines, its title another word for screenplay. It was founded in Chicago in 1911. Under early editors Julian Johnson and James R. Quirk, in style and reach it became a pacesetter for fan m ...

'', '' Screenland'' and other movie

fan magazine A fan magazine is a commercially written and published magazine intended for the amusement of fan (aficionado), fans of the popular culture subject matter that it covers. It is distinguished from a scholarly, literary or trade magazine on the one h ...

s. Among his better known subjects were

Mary Pickford Gladys Louise Smith (April 8, 1892 – May 29, 1979), known professionally as Mary Pickford, was a Canadian-American film actress and producer. A Canadian pioneers in early Hollywood, pioneer in the American film industry with a Hollywood care ...

Bebe Daniels Phyllis Virginia "Bebe" () Daniels (January 14, 1901 – March 16, 1971) was an American actress, singer, dancer, writer, and producer. She began her career in Hollywood during the silent film era as a child actress, became a star in musicals s ...

, and

Greta Garbo Greta Garbo (born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson; 18 September 1905 – 15 April 1990) was a Swedish-American actress and a premier star during Hollywood's Silent film, silent and early Classical Hollywood cinema, golden eras. Regarded as one of the g ...

. As his popularity grew, he was the subject of featurettes in Photoplay and Screenland. Armstrong's work for the '' Pictorial Review'' was largely responsible for that magazine achieving a circulation of more than two million by 1926. Other published works in the twenties include a cover for Collier's (1926) and two covers for the Saturday Evening Post (1923). In 1925 Armstrong contracted with the newly launched College Humor, a monthly magazine aimed at male college students, producing 68 covers over the following decade. As color photography came into its own, demand for original cover art waned in the 1930s. Armstrong's last known cover image is College Humor, March 1936. The great majority of Armstrong's magazine covers show the head only, and the originals that are known are relatively small works (less than 24” in greatest dimension). Approximately 200 total magazine images are known.

Calendar art

The earliest known calendar featuring an Armstrong image is from 1915. During the twenties and early thirties Armstrong's work appeared with increasing frequency as calendar art. These were often reused or reworked magazine cover images. One of the most popular of such images was Hello Everybody, originally the March 1929 cover of College Humor. This was the first College Humor cover showing the entire figure, as opposed to the head only. During this period Armstrong also produced works specifically for the calendar industry. Notable exceptions to the small pastels typically done by Armstrong in this period were five life-size oil paintings of the female figure entitled Cleopatra, The Enchantress, Arabian Nights, Carmen, and Song of India. All were published as calendar art, and having never appeared as magazine covers, were almost certainly created for this purpose. Calendar images became a larger part of Armstrong's work in the early thirties and his chief source of income within a few years. In 1927 Armstrong was the best-selling calendar artist at Brown & Bigelow and in 1933 the Thomas D. Murphy Calendar Company signed him to produce a series of paintings for their line. Around 1939 he landed a lucrative contract to produce exclusively for Brown & Bigelow, the largest calendar publisher at that time. Under this contract, which was renewed throughout the forties and fifties, he produced approximately six original pieces per year (fewer in later years). Most of Armstrong's later works produced for the calendar industry depict the entire figure, were done in pastel, and were of intermediate size (about 36” in greatest dimension). Approximately 180 calendar images are known, not including reworked cover images.

Other work

Many if not most of Armstrong's covers and early calendar images were reused for sheet music, postcards, and all manner of advertising items. In addition, Armstrong produced at least another 60 original images for magazine or other ads, including a series for

RCA RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded in 1919 as the Radio Corporation of America. It was initially a patent pool, patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse Electric Corporation, Westinghou ...

around 1930. About the same number of unpublished sketches, student works, and portraits are known.

Summary of work

Along with Howard Chandler Christy,

Norman Rockwell Norman Percevel Rockwell (February 3, 1894 – November 8, 1978) was an American painter and illustrator. His works have a broad popular appeal in the United States for their reflection of Culture of the United States, the country's culture. Roc ...

, and numerous other artists, Armstrong lived and worked during what is called the “Golden Age of American Illustration.” This age began with the development of four-color printing in the late 19th century, was fueled by the advent of magazines supported by advertising, and declined after the introduction of color photography in the 1930s. In a career of almost 50 years, Rolf Armstrong produced over 500 works. He prided himself on the fact that he worked almost exclusively from live models, as opposed to photographic references. Armstrong eschewed the term “illustrator,” referring to himself as a “portrayer of feminine beauty.” The term “glamour” has been applied to his work retrospectively in an effort to distinguish his style from that of artists who may depict female subjects, but not in a glamorizing way. For the same reason, while the term “pin-up” is often applied to his work, its use is controversial among Armstrong enthusiasts. In
Pin Up Dreams: The Glamour Art of Rolf Armstrong
', the authors present glamour art generally, and the work of Rolf Armstrong specifically, as characteristic of the early 20th century, especially the years 1920-1950 “after World War I had freed women of their excessive modesty, but before World War II had made certain subtleties seem outdated.” The glamour girl as depicted by Armstrong is described as “beautiful of face and form...always vivacious and often mysterious, exuding romance and subtle sexuality.” In addition to societal attitudes toward women, Armstrong's work illustrates other many other aspects of American life in the early 20th century. These include trends in hairstyles and fashion, popular color schemes, changing concepts of ideal beauty, and cultural trends such as Egyptology (1920s), female participation in sports (1930s), patriotism (1940s), and Hawaiian and western themes (1950s). Armstrong's better-known images include Naomi aka Portrait of Martha Mansfield (1920), The Dream Girl (1924), The Bride Pompeiian Beauty Panel (1927), It (1927), Dreamy Eyes (1927), The Enchantress (1927), Queen of the Ball (1928), Hello Everybody (1929), Thinking of You (1930), Golden Girl (1933), How Am I Doing? (1940), On the Beam (1943), and Toast of the Town (1945).

Work with Jewel Flowers

In March 1940, Jewel Flowers, a girl from Lumberton, North Carolina, sent a picture of herself to Armstrong in response to an advert he had placed in the

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

. Armstrong, 50 at the time, had been based at the Hotel des Artistes on West 67th Street in

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

since 1939, and was seeking new models. He invited Flowers for an interview. On March 25, 1940, Flowers began modeling for Armstrong. Their professional collaboration and friendship lasted two decades. The first painting, titled "How am I doing?", reportedly because Flowers, new to modeling, repeatedly asked Armstrong "How am I doing?" during the session, was first published after

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

began. It was

's best selling calendar for 1942 at a time when the company sold millions of calendars in America. It became one of Armstrong's most reproduced pictures. Flowers was popular with American servicemen during World War II, some of whom sent her letters proposing marriage. Armstrong's calendars and silhouettes of Flowers were copied onto bombers and other planes as

nose art Nose art is a decorative painting or design on the fuselage of an aircraft, usually on the front fuselage. While begun for practical reasons of identifying friendly units, the practice evolved to express the individuality often constrained by ...

and painted on tank turrets. She became so well known during the war, although more as a famous face than by name, that a serviceman's letter addressed simply as "Jewel Flowers, New York City" was delivered correctly. For many American servicemen abroad, she represented the "

Why We Fight ''Why We Fight'' is a series of seven propaganda films produced by the US Department of War from 1942 to 1945, during World War II. It was originally written for American soldiers to help them understand why the United States was involved in the ...

" spirit. U.S. President

Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, and the only one to have served ...

's government enlisted her to help promote

war bonds War bonds (sometimes referred to as victory bonds, particularly in propaganda) are debt securities issued by a government to finance military operations and other expenditure in times of war without raising taxes to an unpopular level. They are ...

. The January 1, 1945 edition of

TIME magazine ''Time'' (stylized in all caps as ''TIME'') is an American news magazine based in New York City. It was published weekly for nearly a century. Starting in March 2020, it transitioned to every other week. It was first published in New York Cit ...

included Armstrong's "Toast of the Town" painting of Flowers in an article about Calendar Art. The article noted that calendars with "girl paintings" were "bought heavily by foundries, machine shops, auto-supply dealers." Flowers married in 1946. She and her husband resided in several locations while he attempted several business ventures, including

Laguna Beach, California Laguna Beach (; ''Laguna'', Spanish language, Spanish for "Lagoon") is a city in Orange County, California, United States. Located in Southern California along the Pacific Ocean, this seaside resort city has a mild year-round climate, scenic c ...

Greenville, South Carolina Greenville ( ; ) is a city in Greenville County, South Carolina, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 70,720 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of municipalities in South Carolina, sixth-most pop ...

and

Reno, Nevada Reno ( ) is a city in the northwest section of the U.S. state of Nevada, along the Nevada–California border. It is the county seat and most populous city of Washoe County, Nevada, Washoe County. Sitting in the High Eastern Sierra foothills, ...

, where she reportedly worked as a card dealer, and New York City. According to Michael Wooldridge, coauthor of ''Pin up Dreams: The Glamour Art of Rolf Armstrong'', Armstrong called her several times while she was following her husband's quest, attempting to persuade her to return to New York and model for him. Her modeling career ended with Armstrong's death in 1960. He left a large proportion of his personal wealth to Flowers. Armstrong created approximately 50 to 60 works using Flowers as the model.

Gallery

File:Womans Home Companion 1916-04.jpg, ''

Woman's Home Companion ''Woman's Home Companion'' was an American monthly magazine, published from 1873 to 1957. It was highly successful, climbing to a circulation peak of more than four million during the 1930s and 1940s. The magazine, headquartered in Springfield, O ...

,'' April 1916 File:Rolf Armstrong Metropolitan Aug 1918.jpg, ''Metropolitan,'' August 1918 File:Photoplay August 1920.jpg,

Mae Murray Mae Murray (born Marie Adrienne Koenig; May 10, 1885 – March 23, 1965) was an American actress, dancer, film producer, and screenwriter. Murray rose to fame during the silent film era and was known as "The Girl with the Bee-Stung Lips" and "Th ...

, ''Photoplay,'' August 1918 File:Anna Q. Nilsson Photoplay Nov. 1918.png,

Anna Q. Nilsson Anna Quirentia Nilsson (March 30, 1888 – February 11, 1974) was a Swedish-American actress who achieved success in American silent movies. Early life Nilsson was born in Ystad, Sweden in 1888. Her middle name Quirentia is derived from her date ...

, ''Photoplay,'' November 1918 File:Anita Stewart Photoplay Dec. 1918.png, Anita Stewart, ''Photoplay,'' December 1918 File:Rolf Armstrong Metropolitan Jan 1919.jpg, ''Metropolitan,'' January 1919 File:Photoplay January 1920.jpg,

Norma Talmadge Norma Marie Talmadge (May 2, 1894 – December 24, 1957) was an American actress and film producer of the silent film, silent era. A major box-office draw for more than a decade, her career reached a peak in the early 1920s, when she ranked among ...

, ''Photoplay,'' January 1920 File:Photoplay february 1920.jpg, Olive Thomas, ''Photoplay,'' February 1920 File:Alice Joyce Photoplay March 1920.jpg, Alice Joyce, ''Photoplay,'' March 1920 File:Pearl White - Apr 1920 Photoplay.jpg,

Pearl White Pearl Fay White (March 4, 1889 – August 4, 1938) was an American stage and film actress. She began her career on the stage at age 6, and later moved on to silent films appearing in a number of popular serial film, serials. Dubbed the "Queen ...

, ''Photoplay,'' April 1920 File:Clara Kimball Young - May 1920 Photoplay.jpg, Clara Kimball Young, ''Photoplay,'' May 1920 File:Photoplay July 1920.jpg, Martha Mansfield, ''Photoplay,'' July 1920 File:Photoplay february 1921.jpg, Rubye De Remer, ''Photoplay,'' February 1921 File:Photoplay March 1921.jpg,

Priscilla Dean Priscilla Dean (November 25, 1896 – December 27, 1987) was an American actress popular in silent film as well as in theatre, with a career spanning two decades. Career Dean made her film debut at the age of fourteen in one-reelers for Biograph ...

, ''Photoplay,'' March 1921 File:Photoplay Magazine May 1921 Dorothy Phillips.jpg,

Dorothy Phillips Dorothy Phillips (born Dorothy Gwendolyn Strible, October 30, 1889 – March 1, 1980) was an American stage and film actress. She is known for her emotional performances in melodramas, having played a number of "brow beaten" women on screen, bu ...

, ''Photoplay,'' May 1921 File:Photoplay June 1921.jpg,

June Caprice June Caprice, born Helen Elizabeth Lawson, November 19, 1895 – November 9, 1936, was an American silent film actress. Early life and career Born Helen Elizabeth Lawson in Arlington, Massachusetts, Caprice was educated in Boston. She began h ...

, ''Photoplay,'' June 1921 File:Photoplay August 1921.jpg,

, ''Photoplay,'' August 1921 File:Photoplay September 1921 - Betty Blythe.jpg, Betty Blythe, ''Photoplay, September 1921 File:Agnes Ayres - Oct 1921 Photoplay.jpg, Agnes Ayres, ''Photoplay,'' October 1921 File:Photoplay November 1921.jpg, Marion Davies, ''Photoplay,'' November 1921 File:Photoplay December 1921.jpg,

Lillian Gish Lillian Diana Gish (October 14, 1893 – February 27, 1993) was an American actress best known for her work in movies of the silent era. Her film-acting career spanned 75 years, from 1912, in silent film shorts, to 1987. Gish was dubbed the "F ...

, ''Photoplay,'' December 1921 File:Olga Petrova - Mar 1922 Photoplay.jpg,

Olga Petrova Olga Petrova (born Muriel Harding; 10 May 1884 – 30 November 1977) was a British-American actress, screenwriter and playwright. Origins In adulthood, Olga Petrova insisted that she had been born in Warsaw, Poland, then part of the Russian E ...

, ''Photoplay,'' March 1922 File:Mabel Ballin - June 1922 Photoplay.jpg,

Mabel Ballin Mabel Ballin (née Croft; January 1, 1885 – July 24, 1958), was an American motion-picture actress of the silent film era. Early life and career Mabel Croft was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on January 1, 1885. Some sources give 1887 as h ...

, ''Photoplay,'' June 1922 File:Alice Terry - Sep 1922 Photoplay.jpg, Alice Terry, ''Photoplay,'' September 1922 File:Screenland, January 1930.jpg, Bebe Daniels, ''Screenland,'' January 1930 File:Rudy Vallee by Rolf Armstrong.jpg, Rudy Vallée, ''Screenland,'' January 1930

Rolf Armstrong's Gallery of Screen Beauties

In the January 1930 issue of ''Screenland,'' Rolf Armstrong chose sixteen actresses to symbolize different colors. Here are the original captions and portraits in the order which they appeared in the magazine. File:Mary Pickford - White.jpg,

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

- ''Light could not be painted without it. No other color can take its place.'' -

File:Ann Harding - Lemon Yellow.jpg, Lemon Yellow - ''The tip of a flame. Pale winter sunlight.'' - Ann Harding File:Lupe Velez - Chrome Yellow.jpg, Chrome Yellow - ''The gypsy color—primitive, elemental.'' - Lupe Vélez File:Bebe Daniels - Cadmium Orange.jpg,

Cadmium Orange Cadmium pigments are a class of pigments that contain cadmium. Most of the cadmium produced worldwide has been for use in rechargeable nickel–cadmium batteries, which have been replaced by other rechargeable nickel-chemistry cell varieties ...

- ''The glowing combination of red and yellow.'' -

File:Clara Bow - Vermilion.jpg,

Vermilion Vermilion (sometimes vermillion) is a color family and pigment most often used between antiquity and the 19th century from the powdered mineral cinnabar (a form of mercury sulfide). It is synonymous with red orange, which often takes a moder ...

- ''Vibrant: dominating: dynamic.'' -

Clara Bow Clara Gordon Bow (; July 29, 1905 – September 27, 1965) was an American actress who rose to stardom during the silent film era of the 1920s and successfully made the transition to "talkies" in 1929. Her appearance as a plucky shopgirl in the ...

File:Estelle Taylor - Rose Madder.jpg,

Rose Madder Rose madder (also known as madder) is a red paint made from the pigment madder lake, a traditional lake pigment extracted from the common madder plant '' Rubia tinctorum''. Madder lake contains two organic red dyes: alizarin and purpur ...

- ''Dusky, rich, deep red—color of roses and rubies.'' - Estelle Taylor File:Corinne Griffith - Cobalt Violet.jpg, Cobalt Violet - ''Evocative of fragile, costly, sophisticated femininity.'' - Corinne Griffith File:Billie Dove - Cobalt Blue.jpg,

Cobalt Blue Cobalt blue is a blue pigment made by sintering cobalt(II) oxide with aluminium(III) oxide (alumina) at 1200 °C. Chemically, cobalt blue pigment is cobalt(II) oxide-aluminium oxide, or cobalt(II) aluminate, CoAl2O4. Cobalt blue is lighte ...

- ''Clear, definite, polished blue of enamels.'' - Billie Dove File:Nancy Carroll - Willow Green.jpg, Willow Green - ''Youth. The color of Spring.'' - Nancy Carroll File:Vilma Banky - Cerulean Blue.jpg, Cerulean Blue - ''Smiling, unclouded perfection of summer skies.'' - Vilma Banky File:Marion Davies - Emerald Green.jpg, Emerald Green - ''Gay, vivid, daring—a rollicking, sparkling color.'' - Marion Davies File:Mary Brian - Ultramarine Blue.jpg, Ultramarine Blue - ''Vigorous, direct—color of sunny seas.'' - Mary Brian File:Gloria Swanson - Purple.jpg,

Purple Purple is a color similar in appearance to violet light. In the RYB color model historically used in the arts, purple is a secondary color created by combining red and blue pigments. In the CMYK color model used in modern printing, purple is ...

- ''The regal color. Fire of red, spiritual range of blues: transparent, yet with the power and depth of dark tones.'' -

Gloria Swanson Gloria Mae Josephine Swanson (March 27, 1899April 4, 1983) was an American actress. She first achieved fame acting in dozens of silent films in the 1920s and was nominated three times for the Academy Award for Best Actress, most famously for h ...

File:Eve Southern - Indigo Blue.jpg, Indigo Blue - ''Mysterious, oriental, dramatic, exotic.'' - Eve Southern File:Evelyn Brent - Van Dyke Brown.jpg, Vandyke Brown - ''The tone of Rembrandt shadows—deep, remote, warm.'' -

Evelyn Brent Evelyn Brent (born Mary Elizabeth Riggs; October 20, 1895 – June 4, 1975) was an American film and stage actress. Early life Brent was born in Tampa, Florida and known as "Betty." When she was 10 years old, her mother Eleanor ( Warner) die ...

File:Greta Garbo - Ivory Black.jpg, Ivory Black - ''Impenetrable, sombre, yet capable of innumerable variations of beauty.'' -

References

External links

Rolf Armstrong artwork can be viewed at American Art Archives web siteAskArt auction records for Rolf Armstrong art
{{DEFAULTSORT:Armstrong, Rolf 1889 births 1960 deaths 20th-century American illustrators Pin-up artists American male painters 20th-century American painters 20th-century American male artists American pastel artists