What are Sasha
Dolls?
Sasha dolls were created by the late Sasha Morgenthaler
(1893 - 1975), a Swiss artist and artisan. She was also a humanitarian and
a keen observer of all the world's children. Her vision was to create dolls
that represented and reflected the spirit of children of all races and cultures
during their age of innocence.
A protégé of Paul
Klee and a contemporary of Karl Geiser, Sasha had formal schooling in painting
and sculpture, married the painter Ernst Morgenthaler, and was active in
European artistic and social movements. Beginning in the 1940s until her
death in 1975, Sasha created one-of-a-kind 20" cloth, gypsum, and plastic
dolls in her studio. She travelled the world extensively, studying children
of all racial, cultural, and economic groups to portray in her dolls. These
dolls are considered museum-quality works of art, created by an artist who
turned to doll-making to portray her vision. During her lifetime, Sasha's
dolls were sold from her studio and through the Heimatwerk shops in Switzerland.
In the USA, Marshall Field & Co. in Chicago exhibited and sold her
dolls.
But the dolls Sasha created for children to play with, were
too expensive for most families. Her dream was to make an inexpensive play
doll that would have universal appeal for all children. Her dream came true
in the mid 1960s when she developed the design for the 16" serie play-dolls,
manufactured in Germany and England, that became so popular around the world
during the 1960s - 1980s. These serie dolls possess some unique features:
they have beautifully stylized body parts that are in quarter scale,
asymmetrical, and in realistic proportion, like real humans. They are perfectly
balanced and can assume many poses without a doll stand - they can even stand
on their heads! Their skin colorings are blends of all skin colorings, to
represent all the children of the world, and they have individually hand
painted faces with receptive expressions, each one ready to reflect whatever
mood its child will give it.
There have been three productions of serie Sasha dolls,
made by two different companies. Götz-Puppenfabrik GmbH of Rödental,
Germany made Sasha dolls from 1965 - 1970, and again from 1995 - 2001.
Frido/Trendon/Sasha Dolls Ltd of Stockport, England made Sasha dolls from
1966 - 1986. The dolls from the three productions have similar vinyl bodies
and heads, with rooted nylon hair and painted eyes and lips, but differ in
style and face painting. The German Sashas from both productions are marked
on their backs and necks with the Sasha logo, while the English dolls are
unmarked. All Sasha dolls wear wrist tags on their right wrists - a string
with a little medallion bearing the Sasha logo. The early German Sashas are
more plentiful in Europe than in America, while the reverse is true for the
English dolls. Dolls from the most recent German production can be found
everywhere.
Zurich, Switzerland is the home of the Sasha Morgenthaler
Puppenmuseum, which preserves and displays Sasha's one-of-a-kind studio original
dolls from her own personal collection. The book Sasha Puppen / Sasha
Dolls by Stefan Biffiger (see just below) pictures these dolls and also
contains essays about her life and work. The museum is a division of the
Swiss National Museum, and is housed in the Bärengasse Museum in Zurich.
Visit the Swiss National Museum
website for address and opening hours.
Books
At this time there are three
professionally-published books about Sasha dolls. Click
here for Books.
Bibliography
For those who want to find more pictures and
information about Sasha dolls, a bibliography of articles published in American
magazines is provided for your own research. Many of these magazines can
be found for sale on eBay. Click here for the
Bibliography. |
