Bellmer – Sulking Girl

Hans Bellmer
(1902 Katowice – 1975 Paris)

SULKING GIRL

Drawn in 1945
Pencil, coloured pencil, white heightened on greenish paper, 25.3 x 26 cm, signed lower right Signed: Bellmer, dated left: 1945

During the Second World War, it was almost impossible for Bellmer to work in France. Having emigrated from Germany to Paris in 1938, he was interned by the French in the Les Milles camp near Aix-en-Provence at the outbreak of war, together with Max Ernst, Ferdinand Springer and Wols. Caught between all fronts, he made his way through south-western France, living with friends in Carcassonne, Castres and Toulouse and earning a little extra money by painting portraits. One of these is his ravishingly pouting girl.

According to Edith Fuchs, daughter of one of his patrons in the 1940s and also his model, Bellmer worked quickly, without erasing or retouching, and finished a portrait in 40 minutes at the latest. Knowing this, one is doubly impressed when looking at this magnificent and sensitive portrait again. Bellmer was not particularly fond of portraits. According to Edgard and René Fuchs (Edith’s brothers), during the difficult war years, he only used them to secure his supply of cigarettes and alcohol, which he needed as a stimulant for the fantastic, surreal and erotic drawings for which he is known (see: Webb/Short, ‘Hans Bellmer’, 1985, p. 140).

His reluctance to paint portraits probably matched that of the children sitting as models. This made the painter and his models subliminally accomplices. The children did not put on their Sunday smiles, and he did not embellish them, but captured what he saw like a photographer. The result is portraits of children of extraordinary naturalness and ease in the tradition of New Objectivity.