Jewel Flowers

Jewel Flowers Evans (22 July 1923 – 6 February 2006) was an American pin-up model best known for her work with Rolf Armstrong as a "Calendar Girl" during the 1940s and 1950s.^[1][3]

Jewel Flowers was born in 1923, in East Lumberton, North Carolina, in the part of the town known as a cotton mill village, to Calton and Leah Flowers.^[1][4][5] She was the youngest of three children.^[5] She had a sister, Evelyn Flowers, and a brother, C.F. Flowers.^[4] As a teenager she was crowned "Miss Lumberton, North Carolina".^[6] She moved to New York City at 17 after graduating from high school, having been both invited there by a friend from Lumberton and sent by her parents to enroll in a business college in Manhattan.^[5][6]

In March 1940, Flowers sent a picture of herself to pin-up artist Rolf Armstrong in response to an advert he had placed in the New York Times.^[6] Armstrong, 50 at the time, had been based at the Hotel des Artistes on West 67th Street in Manhattan since 1939, and was looking for new models.^[6] He invited Flowers for an interview.^[6] On March 25, 1940, Flowers started modeling for Armstrong.^[6] Their professional collaboration and friendship lasted for two decades.^[6] The first painting, titled "How am I doing?", reportedly because Flowers, unused to modeling, repeatedly asked Armstrong "How am I doing?" during the modeling session, was first published after World War II had started.^[1][6] It was Brown & Bigelow's best selling calendar for 1942 at a time when the company sold millions of calendars in America,^[1][6] and it became one of Armstrong's most reproduced pictures.^[1] Flowers was popular with American servicemen during World War II, some of whom sent her letters proposing marriage.^[1] Armstrong's calendars and silhouettes of Flowers were copied onto bombers and other planes as nose art and painted on tank turrets.^[2][4] She became so well known during the war, although more as a famous face than by name, that a serviceman's letter addressed simply as "Jewel Flowers, New York City" was delivered correctly.^[1] For many American servicemen abroad, she represented the "Why We Fight" spirit.^[1] U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's government enlisted her to help promote war bonds.^[1][5] The January 1, 1945 edition of TIME magazine included Armstrong's "Toast of the Town" painting of Flowers in an article about Calendar Art.^[7] The article noted that calendars with "girl paintings" were "bought heavily by foundries, machine shops, auto-supply dealers."^[7]

Flowers married Frank Welch in California in 1946.^[4] They lived in several places while her husband tried a number of business ventures, including Laguna Beach, California, Greenville, South Carolina, Reno, Nevada, where she reportedly worked in as a card dealer for a time, and New York City.^[1][4] They had a son together, Woody Welch.^[5] According to Michael Wooldridge, coauthor of Pin up Dreams: The Glamour Art of Rolf Armstrong, Armstrong called her a number of times during the period she was following her husband from place to place, to try to persuade her to return to New York and modeling for him.^[1]

Her modeling career ended with Armstrong's death in 1960.^[1] He left a large proportion of his personal wealth to Flowers.^[5] In total, Armstrong created around fifty to sixty works using Flowers as the model.^[6] She returned to Lumberton as a wealthy woman.^[5] Her marriage to Frank Welch ended in divorce and in 1961 she moved to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.^[1][4] She married Jon Wesley Evans there in 1965, they worked together at his Certified Public Accounting firm, and were successful in real estate investment.^[4][5] Jon Evans died in 1995.^[4]

Flowers died in 2006 of complications following surgery.^[1] Louis K. Meisel, coauthor of The Great American Pin-Up, said she was "the last of the great models" drawn by illustrators.^[2] South Carolina's The State newspaper described her as "probably the number one pin-up girl of all time".^[4]

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