The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 4, 2023

Shirley Doll

1936

Herbert Matter

(American, 1907–1984)

America, 20th century

Gelatin silver print

Image: 20.2 x 25.8 cm (7 15/16 x 10 3/16 in.)

John L. Severance Fund 2007.94

Location

not on view

Description

Matter, who produced Shirley Doll while shooting an assignment for Life magazine on doll manufacturing, emphasizes the dolls’ objectness by presenting a multiplicity of identical, hairless, mass-produced toys, heaped every which way on a bed. The doll, simultaneously lifelike and inanimate, presents the type of unresolvable contradiction valued by the Surrealists.

Inscriptions

Inscription

Written in pencil on verso of print: "4825"

Provenance
The artist's estate, New York, NY
(Art market, New York, NY)
May 30, 2003
(Villa Grisebach, Berlin, May 30, 2003)
2003-2007
David Raymond [b.1979], New York, NY
2007-
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Citations
Cleveland Museum of Art, Tom E. Hinson, Ian Walker, and Lisa Kurzner. Forbidden Games: Surrealist and Modernist Photography : the David Raymond Collection in the Cleveland Museum of Art. 2014. Mentioned: p. 89; reproduced: p. 92; reproduced and mentioned: p. 227.
Exhibition history

Forbidden Games: Surrealist and Modernist Photography. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 19, 2014-January 11, 2015).

Source URL: https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2007.94