The Pin-up Files

Al Buell pin-up artist

1910-1996

Self taught, by 1940 Al Buell had opened his own studio, and was among the artists who contributed to Esquire's Gallery of Glamour commencing in 1946


Alfred Leslie Buell was born in Hiawatha, Kansas. He briefly considered an engineering career before classes at the Chicago Art Institute and a trip to New York decided him on art.

Al Buell pin-up artist

In 1935 Al Buell joined the Stevens/Hall/Biondi art studio in Chicago and his association there with Haddon Sundblom was to prove crucial to his artistic development.

He provided illustrations for many of America's mainstream magazines and was active in the advertising field, most notably for Coca-Cola in the 1940s and 1950s.

He ended his commercial career around 1965 and went on to paint fine-art subjects including landscapes and portrait commissions. He remained active until 1993 when he was injured in an accident.

Al Buell biography borrowed from The Great American Pin-Up by Charles G Martignette & Louis K Meisel.

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