Robert Tonner was born on July 14,1952 and is an American entrepreneur, fashion designer, sculptor, doll artist and owner of Tonner Doll Company, Inc and the Effanbee Doll Company, Inc.
15 Facts About Robert Tonner
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Robert Tonner is best known for his fashion doll designs and the creation of the Tonner Doll Company, which designs a number of original doll lines, such as the Tyler Wentworth and Antoinette series.
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Robert Tonner has received national and international artistic awards and recognition including a permanent piece at The Louvre Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris.
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Robert Tonner has served as President of the National Institute of American Doll Artist.
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Robert Tonner was born as a twin, to a working-class family in Bluffton, Indiana.
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Martin Robert Tonner, his father, was a self-educated engineer, and his mother, Virginia, a housewife.
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Robert Tonner has one older brother, John; his twin brother, David; and a younger sister, Mary.
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Robert Tonner began his college career as a pre-med major, attending three different universities.
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In 1975, at the age of 23, Robert Tonner was hired as the Personal Assistant to Don Sayres, a designer for Gamut, a sportswear company located in New York City.
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Robert Tonner served as Standards chairman from 1991 to 1995 and was later elected President of NIADA 1995, a post which he held until 1997.
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In 2006, Robert Tonner created the direct-marketing company Wilde Imagination, which built a collectible fashion doll design business based on Tonner's fictional character Ellowyne Wilde.
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An avid reader and pop-culture connoisseur, Robert Tonner spends a great deal of time traveling for business.
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Robert Tonner is still the owner and director of Robert Tonner Doll Company, Inc.
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Robert Tonner has expressed interest in developing a line of toys for children.
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Still a member of NIADA, although no longer explicitly active, Robert Tonner belongs to the National Toy and Doll Collectors' Club in New York City, and is a sitting member of the Kingston Hospital Foundation in Kingston New York.