Black Dolls, exhibition, 2018

Black Dolls, a selection of dolls and photographs owned by Deborah Neff, brings to a close the cycle of exhibitions at La maison rouge showcasing private collections. The great majority of the two hundred black dolls in this show were handmade by African-American women in the hundred or more years between 1840 and 1940. Made from fabric and various other materials, these objects are at once plural and unique. Emotional surrogates and personal archives in a world where Black American families were often broken up, they also functioned as images of social and political resistance. Today, they are appreciated as admirable artistic creations in their own right.
Research into these objects is in its infancy. This catalogue offers a number of fresh readings and hypotheses, ranging over cultural studies to the histories of American textiles, African art, and photography, and on to to American civilisation generally.