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HANS BELLMER
La Poupée. Paris: G.L.M, 1936.

Octavo (163 x 125 mm). 10 gelatin silver prints mounted and bound-in as issued, EXTRA-ILLUSTRATED with an additional gelatin silver print. Tan morocco by Devauchelle and gilt by De Rouvre WITH THE ORIGINAL DUST JACKET PANELS AND SPINE bound-in, covers with pink and purple leather onlays, spine lettered in gilt, top edge gilt, paper-covered slipcase; cloth folding box.

FIRST EDITION OF THIS SURREALIST LANDMARK. THE TIRAGE DE TêTE: NUMBER 4 OF ONLY 5 COPIES PRINTED ON JAPAN PAPER AND WITH AN ADDITIONAL PHOTOGRAPH BOUND-IN AS FRONTISPIECE. Bellmer's "photobook magnum opus" is "undoubtedly a major achievement of the pornographic imagination, arguably an honest, authentic, even moral art" (The Photobook). Bellmer found direct inspiration for his work in Weimar and post-Weimar Berlin, where dolls and mannequins proliferated in the visual and performance arts. He collaborated, for example, with Max Reinhardt in his 1933 theater production of E.T.A. Hoffman's The Sandman, which featured a female automaton. Bellmer also rearticulated the Surrealist motif of the mannequin, present in the work of De Chirico and Max Ernst and later, in turn, inspired a number of artists: the 1938 Surrealist exhibition in Paris included a number of dolls made by various artists such as Salvador Dali, André Masson and Meret Oppenheim. "Bellmer's influence on later image-makers, from Frederick Sommer and Ralph Eugene Meatyard to Cindy Sherman, is considerable" (101 Books). 101 Books, pp.88-9; The Open Book, 120-21; The Photobook, vol. I, p.106.