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Meet “Olive” – Tonnesen’s Surprisingly Racy 1910 Calendar Girl

Olive by Beatrice Tonnesen

Olive by Beatrice Tonnesen

As detailed in my e-book, The Secret Source, Beatrice Tonnesen appears to have produced little, if any, new calendar art between around 1904, when she abruptly closed the Tonnesen Sisters Studio on Michigan Avenue, and around 1913, when she opened the new Tonnesen Studio on West Chicago Avenue. So imagine my surprise when I found the provocative “Olive” (included), complete with a glowing writeup, inside the Thomas D. Murphy Company’s book of calendar art samples for 1910. Copyrighted by TDM in 1908, the photo print, which occupies an entire double-page spread in the book, was offered only as a black and white, 8 X 10.5 inch image on a super-sized (14 X 22 inch) roll-up calendar.
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