Les Jeux de la poupée

by Hans Bellmer

Artist Hans Bellmer (Tyskland, 1902 - 1975)

Alternate Title

Dockans lek
The Games of the Doll

Date1938-1949

MediumGelatin silver print, hand-colored

DimensionsDagermått: 8,7 × 6 cm Bildmått: 9 × 6,2 cm Yttermått: 15,5 × 11 × 1,7 cm

ClassificationPhotography

Credit LineDonation 2005 from Pontus Hultén

Countries

Germany

On view

Stockholm

RoomGallery 01:6

Object NumberMOM/2005/152

CollectionsThe Pontus Hultén Collection

About the artworkHans Bellmer created his first articulated doll in Berlin 1933, after Hitler had taken power. His doll works have been interpreted as a protest against Nazi norms and ideals. Bellmer photographed his dolls in bizarre poses and sent the pictures to Breton, who published them in the magazine Minotaure the following year. The German regime declared Bellmer’s art to be entartete, “degenerate”, and he was forced to flee to Paris in 1938, where he was embraced by the Surrealists and worked for the French resistance. He shared a fascination for the grotesque and for violence with the French writer and philosopher Georges Bataille. Eggs, eyes, testicles and breasts are part of the stock imagery in Bataille’s pornographic novel Story of the Eye (1928), which Bellmer illustrated in 1944.
Selected exhibition history Alternativ sekretess (den 23 oktober 2021 - den 11 september 2022) Moderna Museet, Stockholm En annan historia: Se världen! (den 16 april 2011 - den 31 december 2011) Moderna Museet, Stockholm Den underjordiska himlen. Surrealism i Moderna Museets samling Moderna Museet, Stockholm Surrealism, samlingen (den 19 oktober 2024 - den 18 januari 2026) Moderna Museet, Stockholm Supersurrealismen (den 29 september 2012 - den 27 januari 2013) Moderna Museet Malmö The Moderna Museet exhibition catalogues Alternativ sekretess [Moderna Museet 23/10 2021 - 20/2 2022]

Works by the artist