Hallo Dolly

Blessed be Providence which has given to each his toy: the doll to the child, the child to the woman, the woman to the man, the man to the devil! (Victor Hugo)

 Rudolf Wacker, Puppenköpfchen (Doll Head), 1937

Peter Birkhäuser, Puppet, 1938

 Niklaus Stoecklin, Wig Stand Mannequin with Pear-Shaped Money-Box, 1929

 Giorgio de Chirico, The Prophet, 1916

 Giorgio Morandi, Still-Life with a Dummy, 1918

Victor Brauner, Untitled, 1934

 Alberto Savinio, Le tendre quatuor (Hommage to Raphael), 1928

 Kurt Seligmann, Game of Chance No.2, 1949

 Gregorio Prieto Muñoz, Los maniquíes, 1931

 Felix Nussbaum, Puppets, 1943

 Paul Cadmus, Manikins, 1951

Pietro Annigoni, La lezione, 1953

 Philip Pearlstein, Model on Bamboo Lounge with Artist Mannequin, 2005

The Puppet Show

by Jonathan Swift

The life of man to represent,
And turn it all to ridicule,
Wit did a puppet-show invent,
Where the chief actor is a fool.

The gods of old were logs of wood,
And worship was to puppets paid;
In antic dress the idol stood,
And priests and people bowed the head.

No wonder then, if art began
The simple votaries to frame,
To shape in timber foolish man,
And consecrate the block to fame.

Michael Triegel, Sleeping Ariadne, 2010

 Jeanne Mammen, Boring Dolls, 1920s

Iwao Yamawaki, Articulated Mannequin, 1931

 WOLS, Pavilion de l'elegance (Madeleine Vionnet), 1937

 Hans Bellmer, The Doll, 1934

 ringl+pit, Pétrole Hahn [Shampoo Ad], 1931

 André Kertész, Marionnettes de Pilsner, 1929

 Denise Bellon, Salvador Dalí und sein Mannequin (Detail), 1938 

 Denise Bellon, Mannequin von André Masson (Detail), 1938 

 Torsten Solin, Doll, 2002

 Rudolf Wacker, Blind Doll, 1932

Rudolf Wacker, Doll with Fixativ Bottle, 1929

 Oskar Kokoschka, Self-Portrait with Doll, 1922

After his separation from Alma Mahler, Kokoschka volunteered for World War I, where he received a serious bayonet injury in Russia and a head shot in Galicia. In 1916, Kokoschka served as a war painter at the Italian Isonzo front, was diagnosed as "mentally unstable", and, in 1917, left Vienna for Dresden where he had received a professorship at the Art Academy until 1924. News of Alma´s marriage to architect Walter Gropius hurt him so much that, in deepest desperation, he ordered a life-size doll from a doll-maker in Munich which should resemble Alma in every detail, because he thought the artefact would console him for the final loss of his lover. Not surprisingly, the result was disappointing: a clumsy construction of fabric and wood-wool, which Kokoschka displayed at a wild party in his atelier in Dresden, in 1919. 

  Paula Rego, Pillowman triptych, 2004

 Félicien Rops, The Woman and the Jumping Jack, c. 1890

 Ángel Zárraga, La mujer y el pelele, 1909

 Carl Larsson, Self-portrait, 1906

 Post-Democracy

 Béla Kontuly, White - Dressed Girl with a Clown, 1937

Christian Schad, Nikolaus (Portrait of Nikolaus Schad as a Child), 1925 

 Tadeusz Makowski, Jazz, 1929

 Rudolf Wacker, Nippfigur mit Puppe, 1932

Robert Peluce, Aero Boy 

 Mark Kostabi, Hangover Square, 2007