La Poupée [The Doll]
Paris, G.L.M., (June 1) 1936.
1 vol. (125 x 165 mm) of [44] p. Paperback, beige filled cover, title on front cover.
First edition.
10 gelatin silver bromide prints by Hans Bellmer in black, mounted on the odd-numbered pages of f. 11 to 20. Translation by Robert Valancay.
Limited edition of 105 copies, this one one of 80 on pink paper (no. 76).
We apologize for the imperfect translation generated by Deepl for the purposes of the show.
“A fetish object, placed at the heart of an eminently transgressive work, essentially photographic and drawn, Hans Bellmer’s famous life-size doll has almost become an icon, paving the way for a very topical reflection on bodily integrity and sexual identity. In its time, it was a bombshell, pulverizing conventional categories: neither object nor sculpture, it is a hybrid, polymorphous organism, and an instrument that can be manipulated and transformed to infinity. And while it can be considered as the ultimate avatar of the mass-produced mannequins, automatons and robots in devastated Germany at the turn of the Great War, it goes beyond the spirit of derision and social satire that governed this Dadaist trend: for private use, responding to a subjective impulse (a nostalgia for childhood and its sets, a definitive abandonment to the erotic imagination), it is, beyond the spirit of revolt against the Nazi order that inspired it, above all a work of melancholy and “disturbing strangeness”, mixing the drive of desire and the death drive, marvelous and cruel” (La collection du Centre Pompidou, La Poupée, Agnès de la Beaumelle, Paris, 2007).
The Surrealists – Paul Eluard, André Breton, Henri Parisot and Georges Hugnet – were not mistaken: Bellmer sent each of them a copy of Die Puppe (published in Karlsruhe in 1934), with two photographs that would be reproduced in Minotaure, causing dissension within the group. Thanks to Henri Parisot and Paul Eluard, Bellmer was invited to Paris in February 1935. It was a success. Acclaimed and adopted by the Surrealists during this brief visit, he agreed to let Eluard take possession of The Doll to translate it into French. In September, he thanked Parisot for the project: “How can I thank you for the great joy that I owe to you once again?” (September 5, 1935). “The day before yesterday I received your letter! … So you are touching on the question of a text about me and the translation of my text about Poupée. First of all, I don’t have anyone who would want to write it… I have no right to assume that one of the surrealist writers has an objective impulse to write something about me… Having (especially) read Appliquée, I am of the opinion that Paul Éluard is the closest of the surrealist writers to my text” (October 1935). Finally, the translation was entrusted to Robert Valançay, and received in November: “This morning I received your letter informing me of the arrival of the translation with my notes… without the impulses of your friendship (…) I am absolutely sure that the interest of the Surrealists in me would have been fading” (November 12, 1935). After long conversations about which photos to include, the book was finally sent to print in the spring of 1936: 105 copies came off the presses of Guy Lévis Mano, decorated with original prints by Hans Bellmer – including two previously unpublished photographs, different from the first German edition of 1934.
A beautiful copy.
Hans Bellmer, Photographe, Centre Georges-Pompidou, pp. 16-26; Dourthe, Bellmer, le principe de perversion, pp. 52-53; Roth, The Book of 101 Books, Seminal Photographic Books of the Twentieth Century, pp. 88-89; Coron, Les Éditions GLM, n° 100.
