Anne Taintor and the "Taintorettes"

I was in a "pack and ship" store recently, when my eye fell upon a rack of greeting cards that remixed vintage advertising images of women and juxtaposed them with witty (or catty) headlines. And so I discovered the work of Anne Taintor.

Taintor creates collages from old catalogs and advertisements with fun, funky backgrounds and objects, then adds her own verbal fireballs. I don't know if she was the first person to do this, but she certainly is one of the best at it!

"Stop me before I volunteer again" is my personal favorite--the one that I should really buy for myself. I laughed out loud when I saw it.

"I love not camping" is the one I should buy for my mother. I think she will find it amusing.

The site features a very nice e-commerce interface. It would be very easy to buy things!

But the thing that I liked best on the site (aside from the products themselves) is the page where Anne tells about some of the women she has met who were the models for the vintage photographs. The women in the photos are (of course) real people, and some of them have made themselves known to her, often because their son, daughter or grandchild saw one of the cards in a store the way I did.

Anne calls them Taintorettes, and tells a few of their stories on the site. This is Susann (now and then), whose image is used in several of Taintor's pieces.

The site tells us, "Susann graced the covers of fashion magazines like Vogue, Look, and Mademoiselle. She posed as a bride for Vogue more than 1000 times. She was called "The Most Beautiful Woman in New York City" by the print press reporters organization. In 1943 she appeared in the movie "Cover Girl” with Rita Hayworth and Gene Kelly."