'Start Zonder Finish. Een Beeldverhaal met Vaart' and 'De Witte Hel'.
Helmert R. Mulder, also known as Helmert R. Miller and Helmert R. M., was a Dutch pin-up artist, whose work was printed in several saucy magazines of the 1940s and 1950s. He also produced two "picture novel" comic books, 'De Witte Hel' (1950) and 'Start Zonder Finish' (1952). Under his real name Helmert Mulder, he was active as a graphic designer, book illustrator and watercolor painter of landscapes and still lifes.
Early life and career
Helmert Richard Mulder was born in 1923 in Utrecht. His parents were Helmert Richard Mulder Sr., a book printer with the Koningsveld printing company in Leiden, and Teuntje de Jong. Before World War II, the family moved from Utrecht to Haarlem. Between 1938 and 1943, he worked as a retoucher with the Haarlem-based printing firm Joh. Enschedé & Zonen. During the war, he attended Piet Nieuwkoop's drawing school, then studied painting at the Vrije Haarlemse Schilderschool and joined the city's art society Kunst Zij Ons Deel. Among his teachers were the fine artists Jan Visser, Tom Schutte and Jaap Pander.
On 15 January 1943, he first came to notice when several Dutch newspapers announced that Helmert R. Mulder from Haarlem had won the design competition for a poster, organized by the Department of Public Information and Arts, in collaboration with the Community of Joy and Labor of the Dutch Labor Front. The competition was intended to stimulate home industry under the phrase "Nijvere handen in vrije tijd" ("Industrious hands in spare time"), and was meant to draw attention to a series of home industry exhibitions that were organised later that year. Mulder's poster showed two hands doing carving work under the light of a lamp, against the background of a darkened city.
Early in 1944, after a visit to the cinema with other young men, Mulder was arrested by the Nazi oppressor and sent to do forced labor in Germany. During this period, he used his graphic skills to forge official documents for other laborers, but in August 1944 he was caught and arrested by the Gestapo in Berlin. He was initially sentenced to death, but the verdict was later changed to a longtime imprisonment. On 17 May 1945, Mulder was liberated by the Americans, seriously weakened and suffering from tuberculosis. It took almost three years before he had fully recovered from the hardships of the war years.
Centerfold for Pin-Up #28 (1950).
Pin-up art
Starting in 1948, Helmert Mulder became a prominent artist for the pin-up magazines with saucy humor that emerged on the Dutch market during that period, possibly inspired by similar magazines that the American troops had brought along with them during the war. More suggestive than explicit, the magazines contained sexy pictures of movie stars and other glamour models, as well as drawn pin-ups, saucy cartoons, naughty stories and personal advertisements. Taking inspiration from the American pin-up artist for Esquire magazine, George Petty, Helmert Mulder worked for several of these magazines, often published by anonymous publishers. Most of the artists and illustrators worked under pseudonyms, Mulder for instance used the pen names H.R. Miller or Helmert R.M.
From its first issue in December 1948 to the 36th and final one in May 1950, Mulder was the main artist of Pin Up Magazine, making painted pin-up drawings, erotic illustrations, cartoons, centerfolds and comic strips, such as 'Cheques Appeal'. He also made naughty drawings and occasional comic strips for Studio Mondial, Le Chat Noir, Glamour Magazine, Studio de Paris, New Look and Cocktail. Other artists for several of these, often short-lived, publications were Henk Albers (Jerry Milton), Henk Alleman (H. Aman) and the still unidentified Alan Jones and Johnny Len. While providing many men with the necessary distraction in the post-war years, it took only a couple of years before the pin-up magazines were faced with backlash from moral guardians, and largely disappeared from the market.
Comics
Still using the Americanized pen name Helmert R. Miller, Mulder also tried his hand at adventure comics, or "beeldromans" ("picture novels"), as they were called at the time. For the Haarlem-based publisher Jago (J.A.G. Olie), he drew the digest-sized comic book 'De Witte Hel' (1950), the publisher that also released the "picture novels" 'De Moker' and 'Bob Crack' by Hans Ducro. A couple of years later, Miller also created two volumes of the racing comic book 'Start Zonder Finish' (1952) for the publisher ATH in Rotterdam. In August 1948, one episode of this comic had begun serialization in New Look magazine, but the magazine folded after only one issue. Under the title 'Raadsels Rond De Races', Bert Meppelink re-released the 'Start Zonder Finish' comic in a couple of small print-run comic books in 1988 and 1989. During the late 1940s and 1950s, Helmert R. Mulder also made illustrations for the pulp adventure novels of publisher BHS.
Advertising art
When the market for saucy magazines dried out, Mulder moved over to advertising art. He drew advertisements for Lips locks, the Philips-Duphar pharmaceutical company, flower bulb traders from Lisse and Van Dungens rum bonbons, as well as a comic story promoting the taffies of Gilda. Through his father, he was additionally affiliated to the printing firm Koningsveld and the Nederlandse Rotogravure Maatschappij in Leiden, and he drew coloring and pop-up books for publisher Keesmaat in Haarlem. Mulder also made illustrations and layouts for the Dutch photography magazine Focus.
Final years and death
Mulder spent the final years of his career with the ad department of Beecham Pharma in Amstelveen. After his retirement, he settled in Hellevoetsluis, where he specialized in watercolor painting in the English tradition. He passed away in 1994.
Cover illustrations for Glamour and Pin-Up.