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HANS BELLMER. La Poupée [The Doll].

HANS BELLMER.
La Poupée [The Doll].

Translated by Robert Valencay. With 10 (of 10) silver prints of Bellmer's doll in various poses, mounted on card and bound in as issued, each measuring 4¼x3 inches (10.8x7.6 cm.). 8vo, printed tan dust jacket over wrappers; rose-tinted text pages. Roth 88; Parr/Badger I 106; Hasselblad 120; Auer 235. THIS IS ONE OF 80 COPIES WITH THE TEXT PRINTED ON ROSE PAPER, FROM A TOTAL EDITION OF 105 COPIES.
(Paris): (G.L.M.), 1936

Provenance
A Cleveland Private Collection

Originally published in Germany in 1934 as Die Puppe, Hans Bellmer's La Poupée (1936) is a Surrealist interpretation of the femme-enfant complex. The ten silver print photographs depict a life-size female mannequin conceived by Bellmer and custom-crafted from wood, flax fiber, plaster, and glue. The mannequin, who appears in each of the photographs, is arranged at odd angles, with twisted limbs, to convey the adolescent female as both seductress and victim. Bellmer treated the female automata as both an animate and inanimate figure, simultaneously objectifying and personalizing the doll. Indeed, some of the images show "her" as a specimen with whom he shared an erotic connection.

A masterwork of the photobook genre, La Poupée was designed with a direct purpose. The pink endpapers in the French edition subtly evoke the tenderness of the young female form, while its small-format binding encourages notions of privacy and special intimacies.

During the Nazi period, Bellmer's artwork found greater recognition at the same time that the National Socialist Party was seizing more power and authority. His bizarre drawings and photographs of the female body increasingly conveyed a grotesque manipulation and dismemberment of the human body that reflects Nazi brutalities. Ultimately, Bellmer fled Germany for Paris, where, for a time, he worked freely amongst other Surrealist artists outside the confines of a repressive regime.

  • Condition: This copy of Hans Bellmer's La Poupée is overall in very good condition.

    The overall presentation is clean and neat. Each silver print is in excellent condition. The tones of the prints are rich and varied, each with a clean and lustrous surface, and no flaw.

    The prints have no margins, with clean edges and are neatly mounted on cards, which are also clean and neat.

    The dust jacket is also in very good condition, except for a slight discoloration and light, nearly imperceptible, rubs on the tips of the spine. Noted here for the purposes of a detailed report, this remains minor and doesn't impact the overall quality of the presentation.

    The only notable issue is the binding. While the book has been delicately assembled, and appears generally minimally handled, we can notice that the binding is split at one gutter and is starting to split in two more places just following. As a result, the text block is very slightly cocked or uneven, noticeable primarily while examining the work carefully. This imperfection does not detract from the beautifully composed volume and its exceptional contents.

    This example of La Poupée remains a carefully preserved rare copy of this masterwork of the photobook genre.



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May 8, 2025 12:00 PM EDT
New York, NY, US

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