Swiss Sasha Dolls Visit the United States

Authors

Leo Schelbert

Keywords

Swiss Sasha Dolls, Swiss Culture, Sasha Morgenthaler, John Powell

Abstract

Dolls - : Their impact on children, their being a mirror image of a given society's values and sense of beauty, - few would dispute their importance. Are they not a kind of secular counterpart of the Holy Child, of the seasonally clothed and beautifully sculpted Madonna or Saint in shrines of pilgrimage, are they not shadows of deeply engraven archetypes in the depth of the human psyche? One of the great doll makers is Sasha Morgenthaler (1893-1975), born von Sinner, who grew up in Bern, worked in Zurich, and counted among her life-long friends and promoters Paul Klee (1879-1940), besides Pablo Picasso perhaps the most imaginative painter reflecting the sensibilities, anxieties, and aspirations of the twentieth century. It was Paul Klee who enabled Sasha Morgenthaler to attend the Academy for the Arts in Geneva, to spend a year of study with the painter Cuno Amiet, to enter the Holoshi-School in Munich, and to meet not only painters such as Franz Marc and Vassily Kandinsky, but also composers such as Othmar Schoeck and Arthur Honegger and writers such as Hermann Hesse.

Recommended Citation

Schelbert, Leo (1999) "Swiss Sasha Dolls Visit the United States," Swiss American Historical Society Review: Vol. 35: No. 2, Article 4.
Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/sahs_review/vol35/iss2/4