Lui Magazine - Aslan

For a minute there my mind was broken, I really thought I was seeing a car, or a Lamborghini. Or both, But not that!

This brilliant cover art is for the magazine Lui which, translated, means Him and in 1975 was standard affair in France to come across such high brow art as this at an everyday news stand.

Well worth a walk out side to pick up a copy, I say.

'HIM. The magazine of modern man.' That's me. Man.

This is issue number 132. (January 1975).

The subjects include articles on Santiago Carrillo; Coluche; Zizi and Peter Panpan by Lauzier; the pin-up of Aslan.

Santiago José Carrillo Solares was a Spanish politician who served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of Spain from 1960 to 1982. He later came to embrace Eurocommunism and democratic socialism.

Michel Gérard Joseph Colucci, better known as Coluche, was a French comedian and actor, famous for his irreverent sense of humour. Colucci adopted "Coluche" as a stage name at 26, when he began his entertainment career

Sextraordinaires The Adventures of Peter and Zizi Panpan; a comic strip.

and last but not least:

Aslan (artist) (born Alain Gourdon), (May 23, 1930; Bordeaux, France – 11 February 2014; Sainte-Adèle, Quebec, Canada) A French painter, sculptor and pin-up artist. He is mostly famous in France for his pin ups. He contributed to Lui from the creation of the magazine in 1964 to the early eighties, providing a monthly pin up.

He is the sculptor of the Fifth Republic Marianne as Brigitte Bardot in 1970, followed by the Mireille Mathieu Marianne.

Marianne (pronounced: [maʁjan]) is a national symbol of the French Republic, an allegory of liberty and reason, and a portrayal of theGoddess of Liberty.

. "I would describe myself as an intimate hyper-figurative painter and sculptor."

Born Alain Gourdon in 1930 on the outskirts of Bordeaux, he was a precocious talent who followed his older brother Michel and passed the entrance exam to his local Fine Arts school at 14.

 At 16 he moved to the École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he met the sculptor César, who became a lifelong friend.

 During military service he sculpted a bust of the Maréchal de Lattre de Tassigny, and went on to create wax figures for Madame Tussaud’s in London and the Musée Grévin in Paris. 

He illustrated children’s books and branched out into advertising, record and book jackets. 

His brother Michel became a specialist of pulp novel covers, and was so overworked that, when approached by the Lui launch team in 1963 he suggested Alain, who had taken up their grandfather’s Armenian name and was now known as Aslan to differentiate himself from Michel; both employed a naturalistic style influenced by Alberto Vargas, whose pin-ups they had admired in Esquire and Playboy.

 Aslan’s illustrations became synonymous with Lui and its US sister title Oui, and were used on calendars for car manufacturers like Fiat. 

Many of his gouache-on-paper originals were auctioned in Paris in 2008, with the “Cow Girl” he painted for a Crazy Horse poster reaching £10,000.

His Bardot bust from 1969 broke with the tradition of portraying Marianne as a woman of the people, and proved controversial because of the amount of cleavage. In 1978 he was asked to create the next effigy, based on Mathieu. When Lui was revived last autumn, many were disappointed his pin-ups weren’t part of the package. Alain Gourdon (Aslan), artist: born Lormont, France 23 May 1930; married 1957 Brigitte Marest (two daughters); died Sainte-Adèle, Canada 11 February 2014