Back in January, I posted a 1919 calendar print titled “A Little Bit of Heaven.” Published by The K.T. Co from a photo and painting by Beatrice Tonnesen, it featured two little girls in a setting of filmy drapes and daisies. At the time, I knew one model to be Virginia Waller (1913-2006) and I suspected the other to be Lucille Ricksen (1910-1925), who left Chicago for Hollywood in 1920, found stardom and died tragically five years later. After I posted the image, silent film expert Michael Ankerich confirmed Ricksen’s identity.

Now, in May, I find myself frantically trying to organize my Tonnesen collection in preparation for our impending move from England back to the US. In sorting through a box of prints I hadn’t thought of in ages, I found this previously unidentified gem. With “A Little Bit of Heaven” implanted in my recent memory, I recognized Lucille instantly in this unsigned, undated print titled “Golden-Hearted Daisies.” I also recognized it as “Heaven’s” companion-piece, two images- both later published as calendar prints- that no doubt came from one photo shoot.

Copyright 2014 Lois Emerson

Only four of the many, hugely popular vintage calendar prints of Indian maidens have been confirmed to have been created by Beatrice Tonnesen. They are “Whispering Waters” and “Winona”, both signed by Tonnesen; “Wabano” (Dawn of Woman), by Homer Nelson, whose source photo resides in the Tonnesen Archive of the Winneconne (WI) Historical Society; and “YooHoo!” posed by a frequent Tonnesen model and attributed to Tonnesen on a 1925 calendar. All of those images, and their stories, are gathered together in our ebook, The Secret Source: Beatrice Tonnesen and the Calendar Art of the Golden Age of Illustration, available through Amazon.com.

However, I've always felt that Tonnesen was responsible for many more of the posed photographs of beautiful women dressed as Native Americans and illustrated by the nation's top calendar artists, in the rush to satisfy the public appetite for the genre in the 1910s, 20s and 30s.

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