Zoë Mozert

Zoë Mozert (April 27, 1907 – February 1, 1993), born Alice Adelaide Moser, was an American illustrator. She was one of the early 20th Century's most famous pin-up artists and models.

Career

In 1925 Mozert entered the Philadelphia School of Industrial Art where she studied under Thornton Oakley, a former student of Howard Pyle. She painted hundreds of magazine covers and movie posters during her career. Mozert frequently was her own model, using cameras or mirrors to capture the pose. Her paintings are best known for their pastel style and realistic depiction of women.

In 1941, Brown & Bigelow bought Mozert's first nude and signed her to an exclusive calendar contract. During the war, her pin-up series for the company called Victory Girls was published both in calendar and mutoscope-card form. In 1946, Mozert created the publicity poster for Republic Pictures' Calendar Girl, a movie about the Gibson Girl. That same year, she painted the pinups for the Errol Flynn comedy "Never Say Goodbye," in which Flynn played a pinup artist. (She also did the illustrations shown in the movie's opening credits.) By 1950, Mozert had become one of the "big four" along with Rolf Armstrong, Earl Moran and Gil Elvgren.

Some of Mozert's most famous works includes the poster for Paramount Pictures' True Confession starring Carole Lombard, the poster for the Howard Hughes film The Outlaw with Jane Russell, and her most popular image, Song of the Desert (1950).