Art Doll Styles
Doll artists often theme their creations from popular fictional characters. It’s very interesting to see how a range of different doll makers treat a single theme as this comparison highlights differences in both their artistic styles and individual sensibilities. A doll’s features may be stylized, realistic or neither, but simply doll-like. It may be a functional object, a “doll doll,” or it be an art doll, one which makes an artistic statement. Many of our doll maker friends produce dolls which are in this category and are true works of art. Looking at how some of them have represented “Alice in Wonderland” gives a fun insight into the diversity of doll art. The gallery below includes images of the dolls discussed in this article. Click the names of all of the doll makers mentioned in this post to view more of their work.
Old-fashioned
The first art doll Alice in the gallery below is done in a style which resembles and pays homage to the Victorian era illustrations in the original book. This set (1), by doll artist Andrea Robbins, is a studio piece in an edition of ten. Made entirely of porcelain, the overall height is thirteen inches.
Traditional
Maggie Iacono, who is known for her molded felt dolls of superlative quality, has crafted two art doll representations of “Alice.” Compare Iacono’s “Alice and the White Rabbit” (#4,#5), at 16 inches in an edition of 100, with the Kochies’ “Alice in Rabbit Chair” (#8) and you will see that her style is much softer, like the felt material she works with. Iacono’s stand alone Alice (#6,7), at 11 inches in edition of 100, is softer and more naturalistic still, with finely shaded colors, demonstrating that for a particular doll artist there can be (and usually is) a range of “looks.”
Avant-garde
“Alice in Rabbit Chair” (#8) is a fanciful one-of-kind piece by the husband and wife team of Pat and Tom Kochie: the “Alice” doll was made by Pat of polymer clay while the chair by husband Tom is made of paper clay. Overall height of this piece is fifteen inches and, featuring the white rabbit from Carrol’s story as Alice’s chair, has an avant garde look.
Whimsical
Nancy Latham has created a whimsical art doll set in cloth (#2), consisting of Alice, the hatter and the white rabbit (c. 24 inches overall height). The Latham set is a limited edition.
Contemporary
“Tea Party Alice,” (#9) from Robert Tonner Doll Company, is a limited edition standing at 13 inches, has the familiar blue dress with white pinafore (as do all the others in this article) and features a flowered hat with a tea cup and saucer. Featuring jointed arms and legs, this doll has a charming childlike face that is more innocent and evocative than Robert Tonner’s glamorous fashion dolls. Marlena Xenis has designed an interesting art doll set comprised of Alice and the Cheshire Cat (#10), which features carved and painted wood. The beautiful grain of the wood itself is a subtle part of the aesthetic and harmonizes with a very clean but expressive sculpt.
Alice as a “doll” Doll
The venerable Madame Alexander company made “Alice” (#11) as an eight inch doll with a face that is one of only a few that the company uses for all its dolls. In fact the charm of the Madame Alexanders is that they are quintessential “doll” dolls, resembling one another except for the creative costumes which differentiate them.
Painterly
Lastly we will take a look at “Alice in Wonderland” (#3,#12) and some of her friends as envisioned by doll artist Nancy Wiley. She has created a limited edition set of resin art dolls in conjunction with her edition of Lewis Carrol’s classic book, in which her doll creations are used to illustrate the tale. Nancy is known for her one of kind, high end art dolls and although her “Alice in Wonderland” set is smaller than her studio pieces, made of resin, and produced as an edition of two hundred, it certainly reflects her painterly background and affinity. Nancy is very creative and her work clearly is high on the art end of the doll making spectrum