Cosmopolitan, November 1917
Harrison Fisher · 1917
- Artist
- Harrison Fisher (1875–1934)
- Published
- Cosmopolitan, November 1917
- Medium
- Cover illustration
- Reuse
- Public domain in the US
Cosmopolitan, November 1917 (International Magazine Company)Source record & reuse status
The cover of Cosmopolitan for November 1917, drawn by Harrison Fisher and signed and dated Fisher 1917 at the right. A woman in a white beret and a green-and-white striped coat sits with brown gloves in her hands; the head of a borzoi fills the lower left and autumn leaves fill the background. The issue advertises a new novel, Virtuous Wives by Owen Johnson.
What the cover is selling
Almost nothing is happening. There is no gag, no scene, no second figure reacting to her: a face, a coat, a dog and some leaves. Fisher keeps the strongest colour contrast on the stripes and lets the rest of the page fade to paper, so the eye goes to the face without being pushed there.
The type is placed around her rather than over her. Cosmopolitan sits across the top in green, the month and the twenty-cent price above it, and the novel announcement in the lower right corner. The cover is doing two jobs at once: selling the issue and selling a way of looking composed.
Why this one is in a pin-up history
It is the hinge. A 1898 Puck cover is a joke with a woman in it; a 1943 studio photograph is a woman as the entire subject. Fisher's 1917 cover is in between, and you can watch the transition: the narrative has been removed and what is left is the pose and the costume.
Fisher (1875-1934) drew this kind of cover for the biggest magazines of his day and was, by the standards of the trade, an enormous commercial success. The word pin-up was not yet attached to his work; the audience habit he was building - one recognizable woman per issue, read as the point of the magazine - is the condition pin-up later needed.
