Izannah Walker
One of America's earliest known female doll makers,
Izannah Walker was born in 1817 in Bristol, Rhode
Island. In 1873, Walker was granted a patent for
her improvements in the manufacture of dolls. In
her application Walker claimed her dolls were
“inexpensive, easily kept clean, and not apt to injure
a young child which may fall upon it.” They also had
a classic and enduring charm.
Comparisons have been made between Izannah
Walker dolls and the portraits of American folk artists
such as William Matthew Prior and Erastus Salisbury
Field. The instantly recognisable look their work shares
continues to inspire modern doll makers. Dixie
Redmond, an artist from Maine, has gathered together
a weath of information on her blog, the Izannah Walker
Chronicles. Today original Izannah Walker dolls with
their neatly parted hair and sweet finely painted
expressions are extremely collectible and can fetch up
to $20,000 at auction.
Anthony Scoggins. C ourtesy of M ingeiInternational M useum
Bodywork MANON GIGNOUX’S TEXTILE SCULPTURES
From Jumeau to Bru the French have a wonderful
tradition of doll making. Manon Gignoux continues
their exceptional work although her ‘dolls’ are unlike
anything a 19th-century child would recognise.
Gignoux’s fabric sculptures, dressed objects, clothes
and accessories make their home in that difficult to
define space between art and fashion. “My creations
illustrate the meeting of clothes, body and decor”
muses Gignoux.
Whether life sized or scaled down to a more
traditional doll height most of these curious figures
have in common elongated limbs, strangely slender
heads and lumpen lower bodies.
They also share the same starting point. Their
origins can be traced back to Gignoux’s final year
in the Duperréé School of Applied Arts in Paris
where she studied the clothes worn by workers in
the early 20th century. After filling numerous
research notebooks she refined her study and
focused on themes embodied by the characters of
the ‘carpenter’, the ‘washerwoman’ and the
‘woman shopkeeper’.
