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Hans Bellmer

Surrealism, Erotism

(Kattowitz, 1902 - Paris, 1975)

Hans Bellmer was born in 1902 in Katowice in Silesia (now Poland). Very young, he first worked in a steel mill and a coal mine; encouraging his comrades in the revolution, he narrowly escapes prison. In 1923, he took courses at the Technische Hochschule in Berlin and meets the initiators of Dadaïsme.George Grosz pushes the drawing and encouraged him to take a critical look at society. Hans Bellmer illustrates books, paints and then uses photography. In 1925, he approaches the surreal and participate in various exhibitions of the movement.

In 1933, Bellmer constructs a 'Doll' a sham woman made of paper and glue; he sculpts, paints, her waist joints. Bellmer makes series of photographs where the doll is staged. The doll poses, erotic situations, sadomasochistic, dramatic stage set, and soon, this "articulated little girl" that Hans Bellmer imposes all sorts of metamorphoses fascinated the Surrealists. Pictures of Bellmer are published in the journal "Minotaur", the artist's drawings accompany the exhibitions of the group, Paul Eluard will write later poems ( "The games of the Doll", 1949).

Hans Bellmer takes refuge in France in 1938, fleeing the Nazi regime. In 1939, he will join the maquis (south of France) after having escaped from the camp for foreigners in which he was detained. His first solo exhibition is organized in 1943. Bellmer draws, makes prints, in which he expresses his fantasies in a set of images in which the body and gender are transformed. It will illustrate, through drawing and engraving, erotic works (Georges Bataille, Pauline Réage, Sade, etc.

Hans Bellmer died in Paris in 1975.

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