Morton Bartlett

Morton Bartlett (Boston, 1903-1992) was an American photographer.

Life

Bartlett was an orphan, he never married, and he lived alone for all his life. After attending Harvard University for two years he struggled to earn a living. He passed through a succession of jobs, ranging from crafts magazine editor, gas station attendant, making gift cards, and running a printing business.

Works

Although untrained in art, he worked in sculpture and photography. Bartlett first began to make his dolls in 1936, the same year that Hans Bellmer's book The Doll was published in Paris. Over the following 25 years, Bartlett carved and dressed numerous sculpted dolls (about 15 have survived), and created a photographic record of them which amounts to about 200 monochrome photographic prints and 17 colour slides. He was also a collector of anatomy books. The dolls and photographs were found after his death, and have since been shown in books and gallery exhibitions.

His dolls inspired Jake and Dinos Chapman (the Zygotic sculptures, circa 1995). In early 2008, one of the dolls sold at auction for $110,000 U.S.

References

• Harris, Marion (1994). Family Found: The Lifetime Obsession of Morton Bartlett. ISBN 0964315904
• Turner, R. and Klochko, D (2004). Create And Be Recognized: Photography On The Edge. Chronicle.
• New York Times 08.08.2007
• Morton Bartlett on Artnet
• "Substitute for Love". ArtForum, May 2000
• "Guys and Dolls". ArtForum, Sept 2003

Persondata
Name	Bartlett, Morton
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Short description
Date of birth	1903
Place of birth
Date of death	1992
Place of death