Mid-century advertising promised happiness, beauty, and success—if you bought the right products and played the right role.
Period Pieces grew out of my fascination with vintage mail-order catalogs, magazines, and newspaper advertisements from the 1950s and ’60s. At first I was amused by the language and imagery—the relentless focus on appearance and the pressure to be “good enough.” But the deeper I looked, the more I recognized how powerfully those messages shaped my generation. Without realizing it, many of us internalized the constant drumbeat of looking good—good enough to attract a boyfriend and, ultimately, a husband, which was widely presented as the ultimate goal for women at the time.
The message was everywhere. To be desirable you had to be flawless: no bad breath, no body odor, no pimples, not too fat or too skinny. Perfect lipstick. Shiny hair. Gleaming white teeth. If you used the right soap, the right deodorant, the right lipstick—and wore the proper bra, girdle, and pantyhose—you could win the man of your dreams.
Success for women was framed in simple terms: look beautiful and have dinner ready when your husband came home from work. The underlying message was always the same—get and keep your man.
Men weren’t entirely spared either. They were encouraged to be like Charles Atlas, muscular, virile, and, confident. No one wanted to be the “skinny nobody” when you could be the “he-man.”
Traditionally, a period piece is a work of art that attempts to depict the customs, fashion, and social norms of a particular time period. My Period Pieces series explores how the glossy imagery of mid-century advertising both reflected and reinforced the social expectations of its time.
The irony embedded in these ads is what I now find most striking. Their polished styling and authoritative tone carry an undercurrent of shaming. That blatantly patriarchal and misogynistic messaging was the world we lived in, that eventually helped ignite the feminist movement.
I began this monotype series in 2012, experimenting with a range of printmaking techniques including etching, solar plate, pronto plate, and silkscreen. Early works were printed traditionally, while more recent pieces are “hand-pulled” prints created at home using water-based inks.
My process begins with scanning original advertisements and isolating fragments of images and language. These pieces are then collaged—either by hand or digitally—to form the foundation for each print. By removing elements from their original context and recombining them in unexpected ways, I recompose and reinterpret these artifacts of popular culture. Forgotten images and phrases are orchestrated into new compositions that invite viewers to reflect—or even laugh uncomfortably.
Studying the advertising culture of that era has been both entertaining and revealing. What once appeared playful now feels like a mirror reflecting the social pressures of the time that continue to live on for those of us who grew up then.