Beatrice Tonnesen – Photographer & Artist

It is well documented that Beatrice Tonnesen often featured  amateur models in her photographs.  As one of the country’s most successful female photographers, she garnered considerable press coverage, and it’s sprinkled with colorful stories of  how she sprinted down streets, and on and off streetcars in pursuit of potential models who caught her eye.  But she also used professional models in her work. In a May, 2010 post titled  “Did Tonnesen Photograph a Ziegfeld Girl?” I identified three prominent professional models who seem to have posed for Tonnesen.  The Ziegfeld girl mentioned in the title referred to Chicago-born Eva Grady (1899-1934), also known as Eva Brady.  The other two, also Chicago natives, were Mae Burns (1896-1987) and Adelyne Slavik (1897?-1984), both of whom sometimes toured with Grady in runway style shows that were popular throughout the midwest.  These shows typically featured twenty or more beautiful models, but Burns, Slavik and Grady were headliners.

Since writing that post, I’ve found additional images and information that further confirms the three as nationally celebrated beauties of their time.  Today, I believe, they would qualify as “supermodels.” For example,  I recently found an article  in the Atlanta Constitution Magazine Section of September 11, 1921 in which Florenz Ziegfeld himself proclaimed Eva Brady one of the ten most beautiful women in the world.  The article, titled “Has American Beauty Declined?” cited “Eva Brady, the beautiful Brunette from Chicago who was an artist’s model before she entered the beauty chorus,” as a prime reason to conclude that it had not.

The slideshow, above right, features print items attesting to the celebrity of her fellow beauties Adelyne Slavik and Mae Burns, paired with artwork by Beatrice Tonnesen believed to feature the three women.  From left to right:

1. This item in The Chicago Tribune, September 12, 1919, reported that artist’s model Adelyne Slavik accused a prominent phonograph maker of paying her only $3 for an image used in ads in newspapers, billboards and theater programs.  She filed suit against the firm for $20,000 – the amount she figured her picture in an ad was worth.
2. This is the ad that prompted Adelyne Slavik’s lawsuit, shown in a 1918 program for Broadway’s Cort Theater.
3. Mae Burns was so popular that a fox-trot was named for her!  This copy of the sheet music is held by the Lily Library of Indiana State University.
4. Print titled “Reflections”  believed to feature Eva Grady, found on a 1922 calendar, copyrighted by Brown & Bigelow in 1920.  The Oshkosh Public Museum owns the original photo by Tonnesen.
5. Print titled “Mother’s Jewels” believed to feature Adelyne Slavik.  The props and costumes can be confirmed as belonging to Tonnesen.  The family of Virginia Waller (1913-2006), the child model greeting the baby, has an original photo.
6. Untitled print showing woman believed to be Mae Burns, wearing a distinctive dress from Tonnesen’s wardrobe.  This appeared on an undated clothing advertisement.

To see other images thought to feature these professional models, see Albums 4, 9 and 15 in the Beatrice Tonnesen Catalogue.  Move your cursor over the images to see captions containing information about them, including the names of persons believed to have modeled for each image.

Copyright 2012 Lois Emerson

Recently, Lee Grady, Archivist for the McCormick-International Harvester Collection at the Wisconsin Historical Society wrote us with information concerning some glass negatives, or glass plates in the historical society’s collection. From roughly 1900 through 1930, the company produced a series of calendars and posters promoting a wide range of farm implements. He had discovered that two of the negatives were marked “Tonnesen Sisters” and, though the company often shot its own photos for advertising purposes, there were others that were unmarked and unidentified.

The collection contains about 500,000 photo-based images, about 12,000 of which are in the form of glass plate negatives. So it was impossible to look at everything. But Grady selected about a dozen Tonnesen “maybes” and sent them to us. As of now, after examining the clothing and the props, we have identified only one more, for a total of three, but we will keep searching!

The slideshow at right displays the images of Tonnesen’s work found in the McCormick-International Harvester Archive, Wisconsin Historical Society (All rights reserved). Here is what we know about each of these images:

1. “Pigs in Clover” by the Tonnesen Sisters. The model, often seen in Tonnesen’s work ca. 1900, wears a dress that seems to have been one of Tonnesen’s favorites. It appears in “The Hay Seed,” shown elsewhere on this blog, probably the most popular of her early photos.
2. An original photo from this glass negative is owned by the Oshkosh Public Museum. The Tonnesen Sisters signature appears in the hay at bottom left. On the back is written: “International Harvester Calendar Design $75. Dorothy”. The name “Dorothy” is one of several noted on the backs of various photos during that time. I think it may refer to the person who handled the details of the transaction. It appears that IHC bought the negative for $75!
3. This is the finished, colored 1902 poster that started as the photo described above.
4. I am virtually certain this image was created by the Tonnesen Sisters, based on the fact that the child is wearing the same shirt and overalls, and probably the same hat, as the child in Image #2. I also think that this child and the child in #2 are one and the same.

These, and thousands of other images, including company and family photos, as well as vintage artwork can be viewed, and in most cases purchased, at Wisconsin Historical Society.

Copyright 2012 Lois Emerson

In 1930, Beatrice Tonnesen retired from her career in Chicago as a nationally known artist-photographer, and returned to live with her sister, Clara, in their childhood home in Winneconne, Wisconsin.  Nearly two decades later, Tonnesen re-emerged on the national scene as the creator of “Marsware”, ceramic art objects fashioned from coal clinkers, the residue dug from her home furnace!  Reportedly, she was fascinated by the unique shapes of the clinkers and conceived the idea of adding clay and paint to create flower pots, candle stick holders and even necklaces, all adorned with sculptures of  people and animals she imagined as Mars dwellers.  Her craft was considered unique enough that it was the subject of a 1949 film short titled “Unusual Occupations,” produced by Paramount Pictures and shown in theaters nationwide.

Having never seen a piece of Marsware, or even a detailed photo of one, I was excited, recently, to be able to buy a series of five press photos, showing Tonnesen in 1946 with her curious Marsware creations.  The photos, shown in the slideshow at right are all stamped:

Acme Newspictures, Inc.

461 Eighth Ave. New York City

Please Credit “Acme Photo”

This picture is sold to you for your publication only and must not be loaned, syndicated or used for advertising purposes without written permission from us.

The photos came complete with titles and captions which can be seen by rolling your cursor over each image.  Does anyone out there have any actual examples of Marsware?  At least now we know what they look like, should we run across one at a garage sale!

Copyright 2012 Lois Emerson

A striking photo, found two years ago by the Winneconne (WI) Historical Society, showed a beautiful young mother holding her naked baby.  A handwritten note on the photo indicated it had been copyrighted in 1901 by Packer’s Tar Soap.  The photo appears to have been taken in the same session as the more famous “Tonnesen Madonna” featured here in a post from Chicago Magazine’s 312 blog.   Recently, I was fortunate to be able to purchase the finished Packer’s Tar Soap ad from an online gallery, and can now present the “before and after” versions of this beautiful ad in the slideshow at right.   I’ve included images of another mother and child photo from my collection which appears to have been shot at the same time, and a photo from the Winneconne Collection which appears to feature the same woman without the child.

Additionally, as I was  preparing this post for publication, two related events occurred:  First, one of our site visitors, Chip McElroy submitted a photo of a woman in a distinctive woven wrap who reminded me of both the mother in the Packer’s Tar Soap Ad and “Muriel” shown in our post titled “How Tonnesen’s Fedora Became Thos. D. Murphy’s ‘Muriel’.”  Next, I happened upon an online image of the original “Fedora” published in 1901 in ”The Inland Printer”, v. 27, page 224, available on the Hathi-Trust website.  Amazingly, “Fedora” was wearing the same distinctive wrap as the woman in Chip McElroy’s print!  I’m including the McElroy image as the fifth image in the slideshow at right.  Personally, I am convinced that the same model appears in all of the images.  What do you think?

Slideshow images, L to R:  Photo for Packer’s Tar Soap ad; the completed ad; related photo from my collection; related photo from the WHS collection; photo courtesy Chip McElroy.

Copyright 2012 Lois Emerson

'Faith and Loyalty' is signed by 'A. Pope.'

As regular visitors to our blog know, we have been trying to learn the true identity of the artist whose signature “A. Pope” appears on at least two calendar prints that originated as photos by Beatrice Tonnesen. Having been unable to find any verifiable information about an artist by that name who worked  in the early part of the twentieth century, I had been inclined to believe that the name might be a pseudonym for another artist or, possibly, the name of a staff artist working for either the Tonnesen Studio or one of the calendar companies.

Recently, however, Ron Grassmann, newsletter editor for the R. A. Fox Society, collectors of early illustration art, has been kind enough to share some new information with me. Perusing the records of the old American Art Works Company of Coshocton, Ohio, calendar publishers, he found a listing of paintings by A. Pope which were published  as prints between 1918 and 1921.  They are described as follows:

- “Mallards,” published in 1918

- “Out in Front,” depicting a horse and sulky, published in 1918

-  A special publication for the US Cartridge Co. depicting ducks (no date)

- “Fisher on the Grand Banks,” showing a man in an oil skin coat, published in 1921

-”General Pershing,” published in 1921.

Prior to this listing, nothing to my knowledge had ever connected A. Pope  to any print or painting that had not originated as a photo by Tonnesen.  These titles, however, do not suggest subjects that Tonnesen is likely to have photographed.  So, the “A. Pope Mystery” deepens!   Has anyone out there seen any of these prints, which presumably appeared on calendars between 1918 and 1921?  To read earlier posts about A. Pope on this blog, please see:

“Who Was the Artist Behind the A. Pope Signature?”

“Prints Signed ‘A. Pope’ Came from Tonnesen Photos”

“Popular Boy and Dog Image Found in Tonnesen Archive”

Copyright 2011 Lois Emerson

In the period between roughly 1910 and 1925, print  images of “pre-pinup” calendar girls were popular advertising items in America.  Tame by today’s standards, or even the standards of a decade or two later, these photos were artfully composed using flowers and drapes, their styles and themes more romantic than sexual.  Nonetheless, they were considered risque in their time.  Beatrice Tonnesen was a prime provider of these beautiful photographs, which were displayed on calendars mailed on a monthly or bi-monthly basis to advertisers’ mostly-male clientele. Patrons of companies dealing in manufacturing components, farm implements, tools and, occasionally, savings banks, all perceived to be “men’s work,” were likely recipients.

The slideshow at right displays fifteen gorgeous pre-pinup calendar images created by Tonnesen, all but one published by the G-B Company of Joliet, IL. (I believe that would be the Gerlach Barklow Company, a major calendar publisher of the era.)  The first eleven images show undated sample photos used by G-B’s sales staff when calling on advertisers.  These images were part of a 12-month line of monthly mailing calendars titled “Our Old Sweethearts.”  (The month of August is missing from my set.)  All of these sample photos can be traced to Tonnesen.  The last four images show examples of finished calendars produced between 1916 and 1920, also featuring prints that originated as photos by Tonnesen.  It is interesting to note that the 1920 calendar, advertising The State Savings Bank of Ionia, Michigan, published by The Blanchard Co. of Aurora, IL, was probably used as a sample of a finished work.  The information printed in the bottom left of the calendar identifies it as a “Class C (calendar) Mount,” part of a line or theme titled “Flower Girls.”  For those interested in seeing other similar pre-pinups by Tonnesen, four color images published by the Thos. D. Murphy Co. in a 1919-20 series can be found in Album #1 of the Beatrice Tonnesen Catalog. (Click at the top right of this page.)

Copyright 2011 Lois Emerson

Beatrice Tonnesen’s touching images of family life seem to have been published everywhere in the early days of the twentieth century.  We’ve found them in print ads, in newspaper art supplements, on calendars and those old cardboard “church” fans, as well as in fancy frames.  Now we can add self-help books to the list of Tonnesen venues.

It must have been hard to be a woman in the early 1900′s, as the world emerged from the Victorian era.  But, it seems, a wealth of professional advice was available on the nation’s bookshelves.  I have a small collection of vintage “women’s books”, which I gathered because I enjoyed reading their now laughable advice to women on beauty, manners, courtship, marriage, hygiene, health, childcare, romance, sex and more.  One of these is Ideal Womanhood, Guide to Mental and Physical Perfection, by S. Pancoast, MD, Copyright 1901 and 1905 by Thompson & Thomas.

In a work that veers between the romantic idealization of women’s lives and the scholarly presentation of the medical wisdom of the day, Tonnesen was, of course, a perfect choice to illustrate the former. And so, we have Tonnesen’s “Evening Story”- a tender photo of an ideal mother telling her ideal children a bedtime story- sharing a double-page spread with an illustration of an ovum arriving in the fallopian tube!
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