Publications

Still Life with Dolls Head. 2009, oil on canvas, 89x130 cm

Edvards Grube

DOLLS

“All of my main themes developed in the early 1960s, not only consecutively but in parallel as well. I gave much thought to what had been important to the Latvian nation.

A doll. A child perceives it as a human, while for adults it associates with childhood, with primordial games of mankind. The desire to touch the doll and check if the magic is still alive never disappears. I’ve used this capacious symbol of human numerous times, while developing themes related to childhood, as well as bringing dolls into still lifes, creating an abstraction of the situation.

It should be noted that the dolls are unquestionably painterly subjects.

The doll’s head comes from the Netherlands: we went into an antique shop in Utrecht and saw a doll’s head with just the one eye. I liked it the way it was, although we later found the other eye tangled in her hair...

When a child or a grandchild is born in our family, the theme of the mother returns, and so do the dolls. This means having to seek a new approach and new forms.” Edvards Grube, 2017.