2/27/10

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.

Seven and Seventeen paper doll_ft_tatteredandlost

Seven and Seventeen paper doll_bk_tatteredandlost
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.

16 comments:

  1. Classic! No other way to describe it.

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  2. omg..found your blog through Laurie's blog..so glad I did...FABULOUS!!! Signed on to follow.

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  3. Dave, they just don't make them like this anymore. Really have no idea why, because when I've shown them to little girls they go nuts.

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  4. Ann, welcome aboard. Be prepared for a sometimes bumpy ride!

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  5. Try Maxine McCaffrey
    http://tpettit.best.vwh.net/dolls/pd_scans/6-16/index.htmlLet me know!!!

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  6. Peggy, it could be, but I'm a wee bit doubtful. The brushstrokes look different. This looks more like the artist that did "B is for Betty", "Pink Prom", and several others. The brush strokes look a bit faster, less polished.

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  7. These are gorgeous. Although I am slightly concerned that Cathie has quite a gleam in her eye as she checks out whether that collar will fit round little Candy's neck. She also looks a little bit like the Ovaltine girl, so where is Perky?

    Keep 'em coming, I have no complaints only compliments for the content of your blog.

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  8. These are great. I love the variety of your blog.

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  9. Thank you. I'm still thinking Leopold and Lobe freaked out quite a few people. That yearbook has been safely put back up on the highest shelf in the bookcase. I have to get a stool out to reach it, so I think I'll be able to avoid it for awhile. But there are some other wonderful things in it. But then, maybe it's just me sniffing around the seriously odd.

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  10. Hey, I dug the Leopold and Loeb entry! Always fun to mix it up on a blog. (I got a little carried away with my Chile entry and history of Pinochet...). I don't blame you for not messing with this beauty of a book. I think Paper Doll Studio has a repro of it. I have a cut up set, you may recall I posted some of it last year.

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  11. I have to admit, when I started looking into the Leopold and Loeb story I couldn't stop. I kept reading things and then looking to my left at the photo in the yearbook. Freaked me out.

    I didn't know there was a repro out of this doll. That's nice to know. It would be nice to give as a gift.

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  12. I was wrong, this isn't sold as a repro at Paper Studio Press (just searched), but I bet publisher Jenny Taliadoros would add it to the catalog, if there was enough interest (and she had no problem obtaining copyright).

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  13. Anonymous4/22/2010

    If you have Mary Young's Paper Dolls and Their Artist (white cover) page 91 lists Pearl Frush as the artist for the cover and dolls only. No mention of the clothes artist.

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  14. Anonymous11/05/2014

    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.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you for clearing this up. And sorry to hear she'd passed. I didn't know it either.

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