Above, another treasure from our ever generous Paris cache, an issue of La Vie Parisienne devoted mostly to Brigitte Bardot. Really, what can we add? Bardot photos tend to speak for themselves. We can mention that this is issue #106 of the magazine and it appeared this month in 1959, a good year in Paris by all available evidence. 

Above, La Vie Parisienne #202 of October 1967—more than one hundred years into its existence by this point—with an uncredited cover star, and interior photos of Gina Lollobrigida, Dany Carrel, Terry Martine, Jane Fonda, Slovenian actress Sceila Rozin, aka Spela Rozin, and other celebs. There’s also a shot of Talitha Pol from Barbarella, and some of you may remember she married the fast living John Paul Getty, Jr. (he of the kidnapped son, though not Pol’s) and later died of a heroin overdose. You also get some truly excellent ink illustrations by the diverse James Hodges, not to be mistaken for contemporary artist Jim Hodges. James Hodges was a French pin-up artist of the 1960s who also became a magician and illustrated magic books, painted playing cards, and designed stage sets. See more from La Vie Parisienne here.

Just for the fun of it we have another French magazine for you. This issue of La Vie Parisienne was published this month in 1967, which makes it a later vintage than other issues we’ve shared. Gone are the drawings of Roger Brand and Jacques Leclerc—in their place are more photographs, typically of nude women. It’s a pattern we’ve seen repeated often. As the seventies neared many magazines eschewed art both on the cover and inside for photography, which was presumably easier and cheaper to produce. Such makeovers rarely helped with sinking sales, and La Vie Parisienne wasn’t one of the exceptions—it died in 1970. But of course, the seventies were the ruin of many traditional approaches to publishing. La Vie Parisienne had charted a course from its founding in 1863 through two world wars and countless shifts in consumer taste, and by any measure had to be considered a roaring success. The striking cover star of this is unidentified, in case you’re wondering, but the rest of the women are showgirls from Parisian cabarets, with the exception of actress Uta Levka. You also get classic art from Ingres, and cartoons from J.P. Monein. Fifteen scans below. 

Below, La Vie Parisienne #79, published July 1957, with Roger Brard cover art along with beautiful interior pieces from Jihel, Donnés, Jac, Denis, van Homme, and others.

We hope you didn’t think we were being rough on Michel Gourdon yesterday. We certainly don’t qualify as art experts. We were just saying maybe he missed the mark on that particular book cover. He did fine on hundreds of others. Today, we have an example of his work at its best. Inside this May 1959 issue of La Vie Parisienne Gourdon not only offers up a top-notch illustration, but accompanies it with a poem he authored entitled “Jalousie,” or Jealousy. It’s an interesting theme for a painter of pin-ups to tackle, but since we are no more poetry experts than we are art experts, we won’t pretend to critique the merits of the verse. You want to know how it goes? E-mail us and we’ll send it to you. Also in this issue you get art from fellow illustrators Jacques Leclerc, R. Caron, and E. Klein. In addition, this is another chopped up magazine with loose clippings from another issue, we believe from June 1959. We’ve included a few of those pages as well. 

Cover and assorted interior pages from La Vie Parisienne, October 1956, with art from Jihel, aka Jacques Leclerc, in panel two. You can see five prime examples of Jihel at his best here. 

Cover and interior pages from the French erotic magazine La Vie Parisienne, January 1959. If you recognize the photo of Lily Niagara in panel two, that may be because we used it back in August for another post. We have more issues of this publication to show you in the future.