The slideshow at right features five additions to my collection of prints, making their debuts on this blog. Each can be shown to have originated as a photo by Beatrice Tonnesen. From left to right, the images in the slideshow are:

Perfection in Munsingwear – The model believed to be Ziegfeld Follies girl Eva Brady (1899-1934), also known as Eva Grady, appears in a 1926 ad for Munsingwear. An original photograph showing her in a similar pose is part of the Tonnesen Archive of the Oshkosh Public Museum. She is dressed identically in both images and holds the same roses. The white tablecloth, with the butterfly motif, also appears in both images. To see the OPM image, as well as more photos and information about Eva, please see the post, “Did Tonnesen Photograph a Ziegfeld Girl?” elsewhere on this blog.

The Dairy Maid – This signed print also bears the attribution, “From Original by Tonnesen.” It appears on a 1926 calendar advertising The Wooster Electric Company, Wooster, Ohio. This print has been the object of a great deal of speculation by collectors of the work of R. A. Fox, who shared Tonnesen’s Studio for awhile in the 1920’s. A print by Fox, signed with his pseudonym “Geo. White,” shows this same woman in a slightly different body pose, but, seemingly, with exactly the same face and head!
Continue reading →

Recently, I saw a color calendar print, reportedly from 1902, titled “L’Echo” by French artist Edouard Bisson (1856-1939), for sale on the internet. Bisson’s “L’Echo” looked just like a photograph I had seen while visiting the Tonnesen archive of the Oshkosh Public Museum. Perusing my notes from that visit, I found that Tonnesen had titled her photo “Echo”! Tonnesen’s photo bore a 1901 copyright date. “How exciting!” I thought. Maybe I had found another artist who had painted from a photo by Tonnesen – and a French artist at that!

Alas, further research revealed that Bisson’s “L’Echo” appeared earlier as a black and white illustration, titled “Echo”, signed and dated 1891. So, it would appear that it was Tonnesen who was inspired to create her “Echo” by Bisson, not the reverse. This makes sense in the broader context of the calendar art business of the time, during which it is known that publishers asked calendar artists to create paintings that replicated, or at least closely resembled, other already popular works. So, it probably should come as no surprise, that photos of that sort were also in demand. We know that Tonnesen took orders for photos from advertisers and calendar publishers. In all likelihood, she was asked to create a photo counterpart to Bisson’s already popular “Echo.”

The accompanying slideshow contains the following images (L to R): 1902 color calendar print “L’Echo” signed by Bisson. Supplement to Fairbanks Fairy Art Calendar. Image courtesy Nora Okorowski; Tonnesen’s photo titled “Echo”, copyright 1901. Image courtesy Oshkosh Public Museum, Oshkosh WI. All Rights Reserved; Bisson’s “Echo,” signed and dated 1891, published in the March 1896 issue of “Cosmopolitan Magazine.” Image courtesy Nick Vulich.

Copyright 2011 Lois Emerson