Stefania Lazarska Antique dolls at Respectfulbear.com

Stefania Lazarska, the Doll Artist

Stefania Krautier was born in 1887 into a cultivated Polish intellectual family. She studied philosophy and painting in Krakow before emigrating to Paris in the early 1910s. There she continued her training in painting and drawing at the Académie Ranson under Maurice Denis. In 1914 she married Tadeus Lazarski, a chemist at the Pasteur Institute. She kept painting, producing miniatures on ivory among other works, but the outbreak of the First World War transformed her path.

At that time, many Poles were forced to leave their homeland, partitioned between Germany, Austria and Russia. Some settled in Paris or other European capitals, while others enlisted in the Foreign Legion. Stefania decided to help her compatriots by creating cloth dolls, the sales of which raised funds for Polish émigrés. Supported by Maria Mickiewicz, the daughter of the great poet, she opened a workshop with her. By 1915, the workshop employed about 250 women and nearly 32 artists who designed the models.

Stefania herself created numerous dolls with strikingly expressive faces, which she sold on Friday afternoons. That same year, in 1915, she exhibited her dolls alongside those of Germaine Bongard — a painter-dressmaker and sister of Paul Poiret. Bongard hosted artistic evenings in her gallery, attended by figures such as Jean Cocteau, Paul Claudel, Picasso, Léger, and Matisse.

Lazarska’s dolls soon spread beyond the studio and were sold in major Parisian department stores such as Printemps and BHV, as well as in American shops. Her earliest dolls were made following the method of Ida Gutsell, in which the face was sewn from two halves with a vertical seam, giving volume and expressiveness. These first-generation dolls were often dressed in Polish folk costumes and had distinctive wide-open hands with spread fingers.

Over time, several artists from her workshop opened their own independent boutiques. Among them was the painter Fryderyka de Frankowska, who opened a shop on rue des Capucines, and Sophia Piramowicz. After the First World War, Stefania created the Bécassine doll. In 1925 she participated in the International Exhibition of Decorative Arts, presenting luxurious dolls magnificently dressed. These became the “third generation” of her dolls, known as decorative dolls, some of which even depicted historical figures such as Margaret of Scotland, wife of Louis XI. She also produced dolls in the “Turkish” or “Levantine” style.

In 1931 Lazarska exhibited her dolls at the Colonial Exhibition. But the Second World War brought a shortage of fabrics, forcing her to redirect her creativity toward theatre set design and other applied arts. This remarkable artist passed away in 1977, leaving an enduring mark on the history of the artistic doll of the 20th century.

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