Bellmer's obsession with dolls-his endless fabrication, reconstitution, and photographic presentation of them-was an effort to construct objects that would articulate his tortured desires in material form. The bizarre, robotic temptress in this negative print has an eerie electric aura. To love her, one would have to have, as the Surrealist poet Pierre Reverdy wrote, a "short circuit in the heart-system."
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Inscription: Signed in red ink on original mount, [attached to new mount], recto LR, below print: "Hans Bellmer";
André Breton; [Timothy Baum]; John C. Waddell, March 26, 1982
Negative date: 1934-5.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The New Vision: Photography between the World Wars. The Ford Motor Company Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art," September 23–December 31, 1989.
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. "The New Vision: Photography between the World Wars. The Ford Motor Company Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art," February 28–April 22, 1990.
Los Angeles County Museum of Art. "The New Vision: Photography between the World Wars. The Ford Motor Company Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art," May 10–July 15, 1990.
High Museum of Art. "The New Vision: Photography between the World Wars. The Ford Motor Company Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art," February 5–April 28, 1991.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. "The New Vision: Photography between the World Wars. The Ford Motor Company Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art," June 8–August 4, 1991.
IVAM, Centre Julio Gonzalez, Valencia. "The New Vision, IVAM, Centre Julio Gonzalez, Valencia," January 20, 1995–March 26, 1995.
Culturgest, Lisbon. "The Century of the Body: Photoworks 1900-200," October 6, 1999–December 19, 1999.
Musée de l'Elysée, Lausanne. "The Century of the Body: Photoworks 1900-200," February 3, 2000–April 2, 2000.
Washington, D.C. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution. "Marvelous Objects: Surrealist Sculpture from Paris to New York," October 29, 2015–February 15, 2016.
Hambourg, Maria Morris. The New Vision: Photography between the World Wars, Ford Motor Company Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1989. no. 69.
Hans Bellmer (German (born Poland), Katowice 1902–1975 Paris)
ca. 1934
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