ARTHUR PAUL, PLAYBOY AND THE ART WORLD

Does he think illustration will ever attain the status of “fine art”? He is sure of it. “I often commissioned fine artists, and when I hired illustrators I always asked what they would do on their own,” he says. “At one time I commissioned famous artists, like [Andy] Warhol, [Robert] Rauschenberg, and [Salvador] Dali, to illustrate their interpretations of the Playmate. As for ‘fine’ or commercial art, if you think about it, the old masters were doing work whose purpose was to illustrate, and often they were commissioned to create work on very specific subjects. What makes anything fine art?”

Paul retired and left Playboy in 1982 only after he and Hefner had “turned the newsstand into a museum for the masses,” former editor Petersen points out. “The magazine was a gallery you could hold in your hand.”

A fine art, indeed.

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