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The Toy Museum of Catalonia

The erotic dolls of Madame Zka

Several rag dolls sewn by Madame Zka in 1954 in France. Photo by Jordi Puig. The Toy Museum of Catalonia. Figueres.

 

 

Several rag dolls sewn by Madame Zka in 1954 in France. Photo by Jordi Puig. The Toy Museum of Catalonia. Figueres.

 

 

In 1962 Guy Selz published in La Brèche, a journal edited by his friend André Breton, an article about Mme Zka and her rag dolls, which Selz was able to obtain through Art Brut  painter and collector Jean Dubuffet.

Fifteen years earlier, Madame Zka had lived as a recluse in her own world, in a small, white room of a psychiatric hospital, where she spent her time sewing. The detail and perfection of the dolls, as well as their sexual connotations, fascinated him. In the article, Selz highlights how strange and surprising it was to see the result of a few pieces of cloth and some meticulously worked patches in the hands of a ’madwoman’.

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