A German artist, best known for the life-sized pubescent female dolls he produced in the mid-1930s. He is also considered a Surrealist photographer.

He initiated his doll project to oppose the fascism of the Nazi Party, but also probably as a struggle against his father who had forced him to work in coal mines and steel works from an early age. In 1932, he began creating what he called an 'artificial daughter' - The Doll - after seeing The Tales of Hoffmann. Several themes intrigued Bellmer: the motifs of the doppelgänger, deception, passion and demise. He photographed The Doll in various poses and published a book of the images that went through several editions. From 1935 onwards he participated in every Surrealist group exhibition, showing primarily his photos of The Doll, which triggered horror and delight among the audience and fascinated the Surrealists, as they viewed the metamorphosis of the human body as a stage in the cycle of life and death.

He aided the French Resistance during the war by making fake passports, for which he was imprisoned. After the war, he lived the rest of his life in Paris, mainly creating erotic drawings, etchings and sexually explicit photographs.