photography

 Bill Ward
Born in Ocean city, Maryland. Bill started his artists line of work sat on a beach drawing pictures of mermaids. Once people saw the art, they were asking him to do some for them, charging a dollar apiece gave him a good income for very little work at the time. It has to be said, his reasons for drawing women at that time were, because he enjoyed it, but most importantly, because it was a great way to meet girls.  Whilst Ward did enrol in the Pratt Institute to supposedly perfect or at least better his abilities, he didn't actually excel at this, his thoughts geared up to the impending call up for military service. On leaving the institute in 1941, he didn't consider himself to be a good artist.
For quite some time, Bill had issues with his drawings, being able to draw his women in only a few positions, his difficulty with drawing from a different perspective being masked only by his avoidance of doing so. His time later with Jack Binder being utilised to correct this issue.
To many people in the UK, the name of Bill Ward will probably ring more bells than any of the others in the Pinup artist world. The main reason for this was the proliferation of saucy postcard images often associated with coastal holiday locations in Britain, and to a lesser extent some of the books Ward was involved in. Even today, despite the political correctness of the UK, many seaside locations are still a place where his artwork will still be seen on postcards.

Many of Ward's early saucy works were signed using pseudonyms, mainly to avoid the wrath of the less than accepting British legal system and the incredibly restrictive censorship laws of the period.

photoshoot