LeRoy Neiman
"Femlin Playboy"
Watercolor & Ink
Year: 1960s-1990s
Hand signed in black ink in left corner
Size: 8 x 10 Inches
Framed Approx.: 18 x 20 Inches
Condition: overall in very good condition, with some ink smudge on the left corner next to the signature

LEROY NEIMAN'S FEMLIN
The Femlins are not only original drawings by Neiman, they are a great example of 20th-century Americana; they symbolize the Playboy aesthetic of the 1960s and 70s and are icons of popular culture. In the early 1950s, just before Playboy magazine was conceived, LeRoy Neiman and Hugh Hefner worked together at the Chicago department store Carson Pirie Scott

When Hefner had the idea to start his men's magazine, he asked Neiman to do the original artwork, and the "Femlin" was born! Neiman envisioned her as being 12" tall, so in most of the illustrations, she's in that scale. She's depicted as being mischievous, and as her name suggests, she's a female gremlin. Starting in 1957, every issue of Playboy had two black and white Femlins; she was usually on the jokes page behind the centerfold. Amazingly, Neiman contributed two Femlins drawings for every monthly issue, for 50 years. The illustrations were created as a "camera-ready" line-art, to be photographed and then reduced for inclusion in Playboy Magazine

Very Good