PAPER DOLLS and PIN-UPS

When I first saw the Ovaltine ad I posted yesterday my first thought was how similar it looked to my favorite paper doll set, Seven and Seventeen.

I'm putting out a challenge to the paper doll obsessors out there to find the name of the artist for the cover of Seven and Seventeen: Big and Little Sister. I know I've read it somewhere, but can't find it. I've looked through the Mary Young books about the different artists, but don't see it mentioned. I'd sure appreciate the help.

Click on either image to see them larger. © 1945 Merrill Publishing Company,

Mine is a mint set. I spent a few years trying to get one. I mean, it's incredibly mint and I love it. That's why I'm not going to open it and scan the pages. I'm not messing with this one. For those not acquainted with this set I'll tell you that the pages inside are full of color. Each page shows a small scene of the sisters doing something dressed in matching outfits. Truly a wonderful set when paper dolls were in their hey-day.

Now I ask you, is anybody getting their money's worth here? Getting enough bang for your buck? If not let me know. What is it you'd rather be seeing?

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UPDATE: I've received an anonymous comment informing me that the illustrator for these dolls/cover were done by pin-up artist Pearl Fresh. Thank you very much for filling in the pieces!

You can see more of her beautiful work by clicking on the source at the end of this brief bio.

Pearl Frush

As one of the top three women pin-up and glamour artists in the calendar art market at mid-century, Pearl Frush readily commanded the respect of the art directors, publishers, sales managers, and printers with whom she worked. Yet because she worked primarily in watercolour and gouache, her originals could rarely be reproduced in large enough quantities for her to achieve widespread popular acclaim. A close examination of her work, however, reveals a talent for meticulously realistic images comparable to those of the far better known Alberto Vargas.

Frush was born in Iowa and moved to the Gulf Coast of Mississippi as a child. She began drawing as soon as she could hold a crayon in her hand; when she was ready for formal studies, she enrolled in art instruction courses in New Orleans. After additional training in Philadelphia and New York, Frush joined her family in Chicago, where she studied at the Chicago Art Institute under Charles Schroeder.

Frush opened her first studio in Chicago in the early 1940s. While she accepted freelance jobs, she also worked at the studio of Sundblom, Johnston, and White. By 1943, she had become one of the Gerlach-Barklow Calendar Company's most important artists, creating a string of popular series: Liberty Belles, Sweethearts of Sports, Girls of Glamour and Glamour Round the Clock. In 1947, her Aquatour series, a dozen pin-ups all located in aquatic settings, broke all sales records. By 1955, Frush had become a "hot property" in the calendar-publishing business, so it was only natural that Brown and Bigelow should seek her out. A year later, the firm published its first Frush pin-up, a horizontal picture especially done for "hangers" (large wall calendars with one print attached).

A vigorous and attractive woman, Frush enjoyed sailing, canoeing, swimming, and playing tennis, and she would often incorporate sport themes into her work portrayed in a crisp, straightforward style, her pin-ups and glamour paintings effectively captured the spirit of young womanhood. Her girls were wholesome and fresh, shapely but never overtly sexual. Somehow they were able to look both like movie stars and like the girls-next-door.

She sometimes signed her paintings with her married name "Mann". Her renderings were always done with great precision, capturing every nuance of a subject in an almost photo-realist technique.(SOURCE: The Pin-Up Files)

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UPDATE: Another anonymous comment about who the illustrator was:

I contacted OleButtonz on ebay (not realizing she died two years ago. She had bought out all of Merrill's remaining paper dolls and asked her about the illustrator of Seven and Seventeen. Her son answered me and said Clara Ernst is the illustrator of the cover and the inside pages.