Jewel Flowers

Who was Jewel Flowers?

Jewel Flowers Evans was an American pin-up model best known for her work with Rolf Armstrong as a "Calendar Girl" during the 1940s and 1950s.

Jewel Flowers was born in 1923, in East Lumberton, North Carolina, in the part of the town known as a cotton mill village, to Calton and Leah Flowers. She was the youngest of three children. She had a sister, Evelyn Flowers, and a brother, C.F. Flowers. As a teenager she was crowned "Miss Lumberton, North Carolina". She moved to New York City at 17 after graduating from high school, having been both invited there by a friend from Lumberton and sent by her parents to enroll in a business college in Manhattan.

In March 1940, Flowers sent a picture of herself to pin-up artist Rolf Armstrong in response to an advert he had placed in the New York Times. Armstrong, 50 at the time, had been based at the Hotel des Artistes on West 67th Street in Manhattan since 1939, and was looking for new models. He invited Flowers for an interview. On March 25, 1940, Flowers started modeling for Armstrong. Their professional collaboration and friendship lasted for two decades.