Bunny Yeager (American, 1929-2014). Bettie Page at Christmas, 1954. Unique hand color fiber-based gelatin silver print. ...

Description

Bunny Yeager (American, 1929-2014)
Bettie Page at Christmas, 1954
Unique hand color fiber-based gelatin silver print
20 x 16 inches (50.8 x 40.6 cm) (image/sheet)
Signed in ink, mount verso.

From the collection of Grapefruit Moon Gallery

This one of a kind hand colored photograph by Bunny Yeager dates to the 1954 year-long partnership between the photographer and iconic pin-up model Bettie Page. This festive and flirtatious Christmas scene was taken in Bunny's home and shows Bettie trimming the family tree with shiny baubles wearing nothing but a Santa cap.

This shoot was life-changing for both artist and model. Yeager sent the photos to Hugh Hefner who had just recently started his magazine Playboy. Hefner offered her $100.00 for the images and used one of them as the centerfold of January of 1955. "Nobody had heard of Hugh Hefner" she told an interviewer. "But I figured because they were new they might pay attention to an amateur, and that's what happened...If I hadn't have made that early connection when he was just starting out, maybe I wouldn't have got such a big push, but immediately I became employable."

Yeager's hand-colored pieces are among the most rare artifacts from her archive, and none are more significant than this image, one of the most famed and beloved from her five decade career.


More information about Yeager, Bunny Artist.

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