Bellmer, Hans

SCULPTOR, PHOTOGRAPHER, PAINTER, POET (GERMANY)
BORN 13 Mar 1902, Kattowitz, Silesia (now: Katowice) - DIED 24 Feb 1975, Paris
CAUSE OF DEATH bladder cancer
GRAVE LOCATION Paris: Père Lachaise, Rue du Repos 16 (division 09)

Hans Bellmer was known for his life-sized erotical female dolls. He worked for an advertising company and he initiated his doll project in 1933 as a form of opposition against the nazis. In 1935 he visit Paris, where he met Paul Éluard. Soon he returned to Berlin because his wife Margarete was dying from tuberculosis.

After he worked for the French resistance he was arrested and imprisoned in Aix-en-Provence. After the war he settled in Paris, where he lived for the rest of his life and continued to produce his erotical work.Some considered his work perverse and accuded him of being a pedohile, but others simply declared it surrealistic.

In 1954 he met the author Unica Zürn. They lived together until she committed suicide in 1970 after suffering from depressions since 1957. By that time he had suffered a stroke that preventing him from working. He died in 1975 and was buried beside Unica at Père Lachaise.

Related persons
• knew Éluard, Paul
• was pupil of Grosz, George
• was influenced by Kokoschka, Oskar
• lived with Zürn, Unica

Images

The grave of Unica Zürn at Père Lachaise, Paris.
Picture by Androom (24 Oct 2014)

 

Sources
Hans Bellmer - Wikipedia


Belloli, Andrea

Published: 18 Dec 2016
Last update: 07 Apr 2022