This signed oil on canvas painting was done for the July 1955 page of the Studio Sketches Calendar. The title of the painting is "A Swim Suit Designed For Plenty Of See".
T. N. (Jerry) Thompson was famous for his Artist's Sketch Pad Calendars, which were popular for almost twenty years. Sketch Pad Calendars were originally created by Earl Mac Pherson for the Brown and Bigelow Calendar Company. Each calendar contained twelve one-sheet pages of spiral-bound pin-ups. Most sketch pad images featured a central finished image, surrounded by smaller ones that were sketches. Thompson was hired as an assistant by Mac Pherson sometime around 1948.
Late in 1951, when Mac Pherson became ill with polio, Thompson was left with the responsibility of painting the yearly Sketch Book for the Shaw Barton Company, until 1958 while also creating a similar calendar for the John Baumgarth Company. Thompson also created pin-ups for the Kemper Thomas Calendar Company. During this time, millions of these Sketch Book images were used on matchbooks.
Thompson also did a series of advertising paintings for Dodge Trucks in 1950, featuring farm scenes and shiny new Dodge pickup trucks. Many of his paintings were on canvas, but he also created images on illustration board. He often combined mediums in the same painting, adding pastel, guache, charcoal, and graphite to his oils. When he used a signature, he usually signed his work "Thompson", however many of his works are unsigned. A conservative estimate estimate is that fifty percent of his illustrations are unsigned.
