Bathing Beauties Selling Smokes

Back when I used to smoke (remember when we all used to smoke?) I always felt weird having a cigarette on the beach. I think it was because shoving the spent butt of my smoke into the sand next to where I was lying made me feel like I had spread my blanket in a giant ashtray. To my way of thinking smoking and beaches don't mix.


Still, advertisers have long understood the power of selling their product in association with imagery of a beautiful woman in as little clothing as possible so its no surprise that Pall Mall revisited the theme of bathing beauties selling smokes on several occassions.


I have heard recently that some of the Cooper Studio's top artists illustrated ads for Pall Mall. The two unsigned ads above might have been done by some of them, in fact. So far I have only ever found the signatures of Stan Klimley and most often, Mal Murley (below), who is in my opinion the preeminent Pall Mall illustrator.


Need a bigger nicotine rush? Reward Yourself with more cigarette ad art in my Smoking! Flickr set.