Fire Belle

At a recent Heritage Auctions sale in the USA, this amusing oil painting on canvas by Gil Elvgren - Fire Belle (Always Ready) - fetched $191,200, far exceeding its pre-sale estimate of $50,000 - $75,000. It makes him the undisputed king of American cheesecake. The year of the painting is 1956. According to Wikipedia, the fad for pole dancing in clubs and bars began in the 1950s (CLICK). This raises the interesting question: Did Elvgren respond to this new fad with his painting or did he popularize it? Click the title link for a graphic of Howard Chandler Christy's classical Nymphs in Summer (1946).