From the lavish sexuality of Marilyn Monroe in our first, undated issue, 13 years ago, to the warm Danish beauty of this month's Surrey Marshe, the Playmate of the Month has delighted and intrigued millions of Playboy readers. Editor-Publisher Hugh M. Hefner told one interviewer recently that he did not consider the Playmate feature per se an art form, but there is no doubt that the girls have become a fact in this generation's consciousness, an embodiment of a new feeling toward the female, an American phenomenon. The notion of asking a number of the best-known contemporary painters and sculptors to transform the idea of the Playmate into fine art was a natural one, given the centuries-old tradition of the nude in art and the current concentration among artists on the facts of everyday life. Conceived a year ago by Hefner and Playboy Art Director Arthur Paul, the project brings together 11 topflight fine artists with a spectrum of experience ranging from the radical European discoveries of the century's first decades to today's American-led experimentation. The 11 were not asked to use specific materials, nor to interpret any single girl--indeed, most chose to depict All Playmates, in uniquely personal ways. Only Larry Rivers (whose Playmate construction has been asked for by New York's Whitney Museum) chose to reproduce a particular girl, 1965's Playmate of the Year, Jo Collins. Many materials--plexiglass, epoxy resin, wood, metal and wire, as well as paint on canvas--were used in the final works. "Every contributor," Paul says, "had quite definite feelings relating to the Playmate phenomenon and, indeed, some had used the centerfold pictures as 'inspirational copy' before." The artists and their creative responses to our commission are shown here and on the following eight pages.
