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HANS BELLMER (German, 1902-1975) LA POUP+E vintage gelatin silver print 49/16 x 3 in. (11.6 x 7.6 cm

Currency:USD Category:Everything Else / Other Start Price:NA Estimated At:7,000.00 - 10,000.00 USD
HANS BELLMER (German, 1902-1975) LA POUP+E vintage gelatin silver print 49/16 x 3 in. (11.6 x 7.6 cm
HANS BELLMER (German, 1902-1975) LA POUP+E vintage gelatin silver print 49/16 x 3 in. (11.6 x 7.6 cm) 1934 this print is from Die Puppe ESTIMATE: $7,000-10,000 PROVENANCE Sotheby's NEW YORK, Sale Number 6827, April 18, 1996, Lot 319 Private Collection, NEW YORK LITERATURE Hans Bellmer, "PoupTe: Variations sur le montage d'une mineure articulTe," MINOTAURE, no. 6, Winter 1934-1935, p. 31, (illustrated) Hans Bellmer, DIE PUPPE, Carlsruhe, 1934, p. 31 (illustrated) Hans Bellmer, LA POUP+E, Paris, 1936, p. 64 (illustrated) Hans Bellmer, DIE PUPPE, Berlin, 1962, p. 31 (illustrated) V. Kahmen, LA PHOTOGRAPHIE, EST-ELLE UN ART?, Paris, 1974, p. 115 (illustrated) HANS BELLMER: PHOTOGRAPHE, Paris, 1983, p. 26 (illustrated) Hal Foster, "Armor Fou," OCTOBER, no. 56, Spring 1991, pp. 65-97 (illustrated on p. 89) Hal Foster, COMPULSIVE BEAUTY, Cambridge, 1993, p. 105 (illustrated) Sue Taylor, HANS BELLMER: THE ANATOMY OF ANXIETY, Cambridge, 2000, p. 64, fig. 3.3 (illustrated) This is a key example of Bellmer's exploration of his first doll, developed and printed for his series Die Puppe. The common themes addressed in this series include eroticism, sadomasochism and perverse fantasy, all of which are illustrated through a sexualized doll with whom Bellmer developed an infatuation. Active in both Dadaism and Surrealism, Bellmer became obsessed with the idea of using dolls as the subjects of his disturbing imagery. The initial influence of this first doll was supposedly Jacques Offenbach's opera, The Tales of Hoffman, during which Hoffman falls in love with an automaton named Olympia. The evil Copelius, who devised the eyes of Olympia, tears her apart in a fit of rage, limb from limb, at the very climax of the opera. There are psychoanalytic theories regarding Bellmer's strained mental state and alienation that attempt to explain the violent imagery, which becomes even more powerfully disturbing in his second series of doll portraits. The evidence to support these theories includes strains caused by the diminishing health of Bellmer's tubercular wife, his intense sexual desire for his seventeen-year old cousin, and his social alienation and political isolation caused by the Nazi presence which condemned and censored all creative artists at the time. In this first series, as illustrated in the photograph, Bellmer uses his doll in its dismembered stages as subjects of still lifes. The doll and her hollow wooden amputated extremities are represented in a girlish environment of lace and frills. The pre-pubescent genitalia of the doll demonstrate the artist's use of the doll to satisfy his pedophilic desires and sadomasochistic fantasies. The piece is, at first glance, a still life of a mannequin, perhaps used for anatomy drawing classes, but when one looks closer and the true connotations are considered, the imagery becomes increasingly disturbing. This piece and the development of Bellmer's work using dolls has influenced many artists, such as Cindy Sherman (please refer to Lot 67), who uses dolls and dismembered body parts with the same eery lack of human presence in her series of Sex Portraits. Please refer to Lot 34 for photographs from Bellmer's second doll series, Les Jeux de la PoupTe.