The images show Bellmer’s assemblage, made of wood, flax fiber, plaster, and glue, under construction in his studio or arrayed on a bare mattress or lacy cloth. Seductive props sometimes accompany the doll—a black veil, eyelet undergarments, an artificial rose. Naked or, in one case, wearing only a cotton undershirt, the armless doll is variously presented as a skeletal automaton, a coy adolescent, or an abject pile of discombobulated parts…
If the origin of my work is a scandal, it is because, for me, the world is a scandal.
One of the most accomplished draughtsmen of the 20th century, Hans Bellmer was born in 1902 and worked in Berlin until 1938. He defied the Fascist state in which he lived by withdrawing from any socially useful activity developing a life-long project that became a powerful tool for social critique and a violent attack on stereotypes and the promotion of an idealised Aryan race…