Bellmer, Hans

Biography

Born in Katowice on March 13, 1902, Hans Bellmer first worked in a steel mill, then in a coal mine. He met the initiators of the Dada movement in the '20s, then became close to the Surrealists, with whom he exhibited. In 1936, he exhibited in the United States. In 1938, he fled the Nazi regime, which described his work as degenerate art. After escaping from a camp for foreigners in which he had been interned in 1939, together with Max ErnstIn 1943, Bellmer held his first solo exhibition in France, working as a draftsman and engraver. Bellmer worked extensively in etching and lithography, in dialogue with the authors he admired; from 1945 to 1946, he produced several drawings echoing the work of the Marquis de Sade and in 1947, six etchings and burin engravings to illustrate the erotic novel History of the eye of Georges Bataille. In 1958, he was awarded the William and Noma Copley Foundation Prize. He died in Paris on February 23, 1975. Bellmer's work is singular, violent and subversive, but also poetic and sensitive. His best-known work is a reflection on the body and desire, The Doll, a sculpture created in 1935-1936 after Hitler came to power, depicted in a variety of situations.