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Robert Tonner's love for fashion started very early in his life. As a child, he grew up relatively poor on a farm in Bluffton, Indiana. He loved to draw and it was a big thrill for him when his father would go to the local newspaper office and bring him home packages of newspaper print (about 500 sheets per pack). Young Robert would occupy hours and hours of his time sketching clothes. At the age of nine he even convinced his mother to teach him to use the sewing machine, and in a couple of days, he had completed his first garment. While a pre-med student in a college in Colorado, Kentucky, Tonner visited New York City on a summer vacation. He was out one day and happened to run across the famous Parsons School of Design, where he saw a notice for a summer fashion course. The course sounded like fun to him so he enrolled. He then applied for a full scholarship and was accepted. Robert had originally planned to study fashion illustration, but that course was full, so he selected a fashion design course. He loved it. He found that he could draw and sew quite well, and it was considerably easier than the pre-med course that he had previously studies. Robert graduated from Parsons in 1975. After graduating, Robert began working for a small design company and had been working there a few years until one day in 1978, while attending the theater, he had the good fortune to meet the reknowned Designer - Bill Blass. Soon after, Robert began his new job holding the title of Mr. Blass's Head Fashion Designer of his womens' sportswear line. He loved doing this so much that after working there for about six years, he decided to try his hand building his own design company. Unfortunantly, he had problems with financial backing, so after a while, he eventually went back to work for Mr. Blass. During this time, in 1979 a friend of his took him to a doll show. Robert arrived at this exhibition, bringing with him very little knowledge about dolls. As a matter of fact, he wasn't even aware that there were accomplished sculptors making dolls. It was at this show that he met A. Glenn Mandeville - very well known in our world of dolls as a, if not the foremost authority on dolls, and it was Mr. Mandeville who gave him a crash course on dolls and told him about the National Institute of American Doll Artists (NAIDA). Soon after their conversation, Robert decided to try his hand at sculpturing. His first effort turned out terrible. His first head was made out of solid paper mache' which dried on the outside but rotted on the inside. Disappointed, he placed the head on a table and left sculpturing alone for a good while. Then one day, while painting a wall in a peach color, he decided to dip the by then dried paper mache' head into the paint and it looked like a real doll head. He got excited about this, and his interest in sculpturing returned. Following the advise of artist Robert McKinley, Tonner switched to using Sculpey. Robert began to research doll making and eventually became more interested in sculpturing than in designing. He had always been intrigued by the exaggerated poses of mannequins so he began studying mannequin catalogues and pictures. So while continuing to hold his job with Bill Blass, Robert began diligently sculpting during his free time after work, and on weekends. He continued to do this for the next few years and his skills improved with each effort. He eventually discovered that he a was a better sculptor than an illustrator and in 1985, after he felt that his work had improved enough, he entered one of his dolls in an artist-critiquing session held at NIADA. There, Robert got his biggest incentive boost - a very good review of his work from well known doll artist such as John Wright, Helen Kish and Martha Armstrong-Hand. They encouraged him to continue, and he did. He completed about 2 or 3 one-of-a-kind dolls a year, and was eventually advised to submit his portfolio and apply for admission to NIADA. He was accepted as a member in 1988. Tonner then decided to try a new medium - porcelain, and began learning to make two piece molds. His very first efforts in this didn't turn out well either. His all porcelain bodies kept collapsing in the kiln, but in his usual persistant way, and after a few tries, he worked out the problems with the joints, and he was successful. So in 1989 Robert Began making porcelain limited editions. Then, in 1991 Robert decided to leave the 7th avenue fashion world that he had been working in for 15 years (8 of them for Bill Blass), and devote his time to designing his dolls full time. He moved from his Manhattan apartment to a new home in Stone Ridge, in upstate New York. He began creating his dolls in a two-story studio in nearby Kingston. In the early 90's, Robert was selling all of the dolls that he made, but few knew who he was. He has since then served as the president of NAIDA, been honored with having some of his creations added to the permanent collection of the Museum of Decorative Arts at the Louvre complex in Paris, and has become one of the top and most successful doll artist in the industry. What makes Robert Tonner such an interesting doll artist? In my opinion, it is his diversity. He creates child dolls, and great classic character dolls such as Orphan Annie, Betsy McCall, and even Superman and Lois Lane. He also creates the more mature bodied (lady) dolls, and his dolls come in a variety of sizes, and mediums - porcelain, hard plastic and vinyl - introduced in 1993. Though it is very hard to select a catagory, it is his lovely fashion models that I will be focusing on in these next pages. AND IN CASE YOU DIDN'T KNOW...
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: I'd like to take time to thank the sources of some of my information: 1. The Robert Tonner Doll Company® - assorted releases.2. Doll Reader Magazine®, May 1992 - article entitled "An Interview with Robert Tonner" - by Lewis Goldstein. 3. Dolls®, June/July 1994 - article entitled "A Sense of Style" - by Louise Fecher. 4. Dolls®, October 1995 - article entitled "Highly Fashionable Fund-raisers".  on to - THE FASHION MODELS  Back to Devonne's Homepage CREATED AND DISTRIBUTED |
Robert Tonner is world reknowned for his award winning dolls and fashion designs. He is the immediate past president of the National Institute of American Doll Artists (NAIDA) and is the recipient of over twenty doll industry award nominations. Tonner dolls have been featured by People Magazine, CNN, the Associated Press, the Barbara Walters Oscar Night Special, Entertainment Tonight, British Vogue magazine and other national media.
The Robert Tonner Doll Company is located at: 77 Cornell Street, Kingston, NY 12401 - Telephone: 1 (914) 339-9537 - Fax: 1 (914) 339-1259.
