• Original 1976 Hans Bellmer Die Puppe paperback, Ullstein Verlag, Frankfurt — cream textured cover with centred colour photograph of a fragmented doll torso in pink and olive tones, three titles in black serif type below: Die Puppe / Die Spiele der Puppe / Die Anatomie des Bildes
  • Reverse of 1976 Hans Bellmer Die Puppe, Ullstein Verlag — plain cream back cover, no text or imagery, showing age toning and light wear to edges
  • Interior spread of 1976 Hans Bellmer Die Puppe — left page with copyright and CIP bibliographic data; right page with title page reading Hans Bellmer / Die Puppe in blackletter gothic type, subtitle Die Puppe / Die Spiele der Puppe / Die Anatomie des Bildes in italic serif below
  • Interior spread of 1976 Hans Bellmer Die Puppe — left page with black-and-white photograph of an articulated skeletal doll figure standing upright in a doorway; right page blank
  • Interior spread of 1976 Hans Bellmer Die Puppe — two black-and-white photographs of disassembled doll parts: left image showing a torso fragment amid fabric; right image showing a headless torso with a detached glass eye in the foreground against a striped background
  • Interior spread of 1976 Hans Bellmer Die Puppe — left page with Bellmer line drawing of a female figure with dotted anatomical markings; right page with section title Kleine Anatomie des Körperlichen Unbewussten oder Die Anatomie des Bildes in large spaced capitals
  • Interior spread of 1976 Hans Bellmer Die Puppe — left page with German prose text headed XI; right page with black-and-white photograph of a compact doll figure with multiple spherical body parts resting on satin fabric
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Ullstein Verlag

Hans Bellmer — Die Puppe. Die Spiele der Puppe, Frankfurt, 1976

Hans Bellmer — Die Puppe. Die Spiele der Puppe, Frankfurt, 1976

£110.00 GBP
£110.00 GBP
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Softcover. 113 pages. 12 × 18 cm. German language. Ullstein Buch Nr. 3281, Frankfurt / Berlin / Wien, 1976. Illustrated throughout with Bellmer's photographs, drawings, texts, and studies relating to Die Puppe.

This 1976 Ullstein edition gathers three of Bellmer's key texts and image sequences: Die Puppe, Die Spiele der Puppe, and Die Anatomie des Bildes. Issued a year after Bellmer's death, it functions less as a conventional monograph than as a compact repository of the artist's central project. Photographs, diagrams, drawings, and writings circulate together, allowing the doll to appear simultaneously as sculpture, image, text, and psychological apparatus.

Hans Bellmer occupies a singular position within twentieth-century art. Produced in opposition to the authoritarian idealization of the body promoted by National Socialism, his doll constructions of the 1930s fragmented and reassembled anatomy into unstable psychological forms. Adopted by the Surrealists after his move to Paris, Bellmer's photographs became some of the most influential and controversial images of the movement, shaping later generations of artists concerned with desire, identity, fetishism, performance, and the constructed body.

Within a contemporary context, the book reads as an early document of body manipulation before digital technologies. Bellmer's assembled figures anticipate later concerns found in artists as varied as Cindy Sherman, Mike Kelley, Paul McCarthy, and Charles Ray, where the body becomes image, prop, surrogate, and constructed fiction.

Copies remain obtainable but are increasingly encountered within specialist Surrealism, photography, and avant-garde libraries rather than general circulation. The edition is particularly desirable because it consolidates several foundational Bellmer publications into a single portable volume.

Condition: Good vintage condition. Light edge wear, age toning, minor handling marks, and gentle rubbing to covers consistent with age.

Shipping and handling included in the listed price.

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