More from France today with V magazine of winter 1965. This particular issue, in the masthead in extremely small print, reveals that V is short for Voilà. Other issues we have do not mention that, so it’s news to us, and probably to many other people as well, especially because we shared an issue a while back that clearly says on the cover “Supplement au No. 445 de Voir Magazine.” So it is Voilà, Voir, or just V? To tell the truth, we wondered in the past if the 1950s V was the same as the earlier magazine that published through the ’40s, but it was. The publisher, editor, and even the street address changed, but we’ve seen an issue from 1949 that shows an unmistakable visual transition between the two versions. If indeed the magazine was ever actually called Voilà, or Voir, the full name never appeared on the cover, as far as we know. Speaking of covers, this one was painted by Raymond Brenot, aka Pierre-Laurent Brenot, who was both an artist and a successful fashion designer, and he joined a special fraternity of brilliant V cover artists such as René Caille, Jean David, and Georges Pichard. The interior illustrations are from Brenot, Pichard, Le Gano, Renoir and others. Plus there are photos of Margaret Lee, Catherine Frank, Mara Berni, Liten Østern, dancer Sonia Vareuil, et.al. Generally, the more a magazine costs us the more pages we scan, just so we can feel like we got our money’s worth. This one was ten euros, so below are more than thirty images for your enjoyment.

Here’s another of our recent French acqusitions, a July 10 1949 issue of V, with an Alex Quinio front cover. Below you get art from Jean David, who drew both the comic strip and the rear cover, and you also gets lots of images of French people frolicking in the sun. Probably that's what we like about this magazine—it depicts the good life, which is something we always aspire to. Actually, thinking about it, what the hell are we doing indoors right now? There's a glass of cold white wine calling our names. See you later.

The French magazine V is probably one of the most visually pleasing and collectible periodicals ever published. The early issues featured photo-illustrations of movie stars, but starting in the 1950s V began to showcase provocative pin-up style cover paintings from a succession of three artists—Georges Pichard, René Caille and Jean David. All were geniuses; none are well known outside collectors circles and France, where they lived and worked. But popularity is never a true measure of value—Pichard, Caille and David Vs can go at auction for thirty, forty, or even fifty dollars. We've seen them listed for even more, though those went unsold as far as we can tell. Vs with Pierre-Laurent Brenot covers are also highly regarded. This one, V Sélections 57, with a Pichard cover and Brigitte Bardot, Christine Carère and Marilyn Monroe inside, dates from winter 1957. We have a couple more of these we’ll share in their entirety as soon as we get in the mood to do the scanning. Meantime see some 1940s V covers here and here. 

V magazine from France, published February 8, 1948, with a photo-illustration of an almost unrecognizable young Marilyn Monroe on the cover. 

V is one of our favorite vintage publications. This one was published sixty-two years ago today, and features cover star Susan Hayward. V was basically a celebrity and culture magazine, but also emphasized sexuality by publishing artful nude photos. If we’re reading this cover correctly, the magazine launched in 1943—curious, since there was a little thing called World War II raging then. We have a hard time believing a Nazi or Vichy-approved V is the same as the one we’re seeing here, but we’ll look into that. Whatever transition the magazine made from the war to post-war years, in the fifties it changed again from handtinted covers featuring film celebs, to pin-ups conjured from the airbrushes of some of France’s best illustrators, such as the image from René Caille below. One wonders if these are two distinct magazines with the same name. We'll look into that too. Anyway, Caille isn’t as well known as pin-up masters like Vargas or Bolles, but as you can see he was a singular talent. We located a few more V covers, and we’ll show you those later.