Post-depression America was in desperate need of a defining iconography that would lift it out of the black and white doldrums, and it came in the form of Gil Elvgren's Technicolor fantasies of the American dream. His techniquewhich earned him a rep utation as "The Norman Rockwell of cheesecake"involved photographing models and then painting them into gorgeous hyper-reality, with longer legs, more flamboyant hair and gravity-defying busts, and in the process making them the perfect moral-boosti ng eye-candy for every homesick private.