Born in St. Paul, Minnesota, Elvgren attended University High School and after graduation, he studied art at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts before moving to Chicago to study at the American Academy of Art. He graduated the Academy during the depression at the age of 22 and went into advertising. Then he became strongly influenced by the early so-called 'pretty girl' illustrators, such as the legendary Charles Dana Gibson and others such as Andrew Loomis, and Howard Chandler Christy. In 1937 he began painting calendar pin-ups for Louis F. Dow, one of America's leading publishing companies and during World War II his work was reproduced on American aircraft. He was so successful in the field, thus began his work on pin-ups, which continued until the 1970s. And he began to produce an annual calendar, which ran to a number of editions. During the 1940s and 1950s he illustrated stories for many magazines, such as 'The Saturday Evening Post' and 'Good Housekeeping' and it is reputed that he produced over 500 paintings of beautiful girls and women through the 1950s to the 1970s.