More on Brundage's Art & HPL's Opinion of Her Weird Tales Covers.

{Hey, Dear Readers. You really should join the Google Group. A lot of conversation goes on there that I have to transpose back here sometimes. I just can't do post all, though. The antiquarian thread at Horror Mall is pretty cool, too.}

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Jeff found the information and posted it at Google Groups. Then, my pal, Jimster, found more information in his Etchings and Oddyseys # 2 (see below).

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Jeff:

No problem, Chris! I'm happy I can contribute to the conversation.

I found the reference I was looking for, concerning Lovecraft and the Weird Tales covers. In his book, H.P. LOVECRAFT: A LIFE, S.T. Joshi quotes from a letter that Lovecraft wrote to Willis Conover on September 1, 1936:

About WT covers -- they really are too trivial to get angry about. If they weren't totally irrelevant and unrepresentative nudes, they'd probably be something equally awkward and trivial, even though less irrelevant....I have no objection to the nude in art -- in fact the human figure is as worth a type of subject-matter as any other object of beauty in the visible world. But I don't see what the hell Mrs. Brundage's undressed ladies have to do with weird fiction.
After this quote, Joshi writes:

A quotation like this should help to dispel the silly rumour that Lovecraft habitually tore off the covers of Weird Tales because he was either outraged or embarrassed by the nude covers; although the real proof of the falsity of this rumour comes from a consultation of his own complete file of the magazine, sitting perfectly intact at the John Hay Library of Brown University.

And if you want to read the Margaret Brundage interview I mentioned, go to this website:

http://members.aol.com/weirdtales/brundage.htm

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Jimster:

Chris ... You really do learn new things every day!

... From Etchings & Odysseys / 2:

E&O: What models did you use for these nudes - your imagination?Brundage: Mostly my imagination, yep. Once in a while, I would get - have a friend pose for me. But...mostly it was out of my head. And, for the male figures, I would pick my husband to pose for a while. But to hire models, no, I'm afraid I didn't. But I did give them the impression that I did hire models. But I never came right out and said "I hired a model." But if they thought I had a live model, it would cause me less trouble with anatomical problems.

Now, I knew anatomy - I don't know whether I know it that well now - but I taught it for a couple of years, so that I really knew my anatomy. Like all inexperienced people with art, they would find a flaw that isn't really a flaw - you know what I mean? - something about the picture that bothered them. And they'll pick out something - and probably the thing they pick out is perfect, but something else is really wrong. And they make you correct the one thing. And it worsens the picture really. The artist could have told them what was wrong, well, this happens all the time in comercial art. The person buying will find something wrong with it nine times out of ten. But that's not really what's wrong.

In the interview, she also makes mention of her son (no other children). One very interesting (and classy) lady, even if HPL had his doubts about her talent. She appartently went to school in the same class as Walt Disney!

Jim