Untitled 2, 1965
Bellmer reacted to the zeitgeist of the moment in his work, stating “if the origin of my work is scandalous it is because, for me, the world is a scandal.”
Hans Bellmer (1902-75) was among many artists and poets who took inspiration from “Les Chants de Maldoror,” a dark chronicle of the wanderings and observations of a man convinced that cruelty and genius can coexist in a single personality. Bellmer, a German who lived in Paris from the late 1930s until his death, drew upon the proto-Surrealist tale in a series of etchings published in the 1960s.