Description
Sasha 1965-1985 Anniversary Doll commemorates the twentieth year of English production of Sasha dolls. To celebrate this important milestone, a commemorative doll was manufactured. She is a blond Sasha dressed in a blue corduroy dress with long sleeves and contrasting white collar over matching panties and knit undershirt, socks and dark blue shoes. She comes in a special commentative box which I do have but it has been stored flat and is in poor shape. This doll was considered a “Special” edition not a “Limited” edition but due to the shut down of factory soon after is limited. I will include press release photo obtained at 1985 Toy Fair where I represented Sasha Dolls.
Beginning in the 1940s, Swiss artist Sasha Morgenthaler, a formally trained protégé of painter Paul Klee, chose dollmaking as her favorite medium for expression. A humanitarian married to fellow artist Ernest Morgenthaler, Sasha traveled the world, interacting with children from a wide variety of cultures and races. These kids became the inspiration for her art—20-inch, one-of-a-kind dolls made out of cloth, gypsum, and plastic. Her handmade dolls, which she made until her death in 1975, were sold in Switzerland through her studio and the Heimatwerk shops, and in the United States at Marshall Field & Co. But even the handmade dolls she intended as playthings were just too expensive for most families. Morgenthaler dreamed of producing an affordable doll that would appeal to all children. In the mid-1960s she made that happen with Sasha. Sasha was a 16-inch hard vinyl doll produced by Götz-Puppenfabrik in Germany (1965-1970 and 1995-2001) and Trendon Ltd. in England (1966-1986). These quarter-scale dolls, which were sold all over the world, had distinguishing stylized facial features and realistically proportioned asymmetrical body parts. Their feet were flat, which allowed them to stand on their own. In fact, they were so well-balanced, they could even stand on their heads. The Trendon Sasha dolls could be dressed as girls, boys, or babies and came in three flesh tones, depending on whether the doll had black, brown, or blond hair. The socket head turned, the molded hands had joined fingers but separate thumbs, and the long rooted nylon hair could be brushed into bangs. The German dolls also had similar bodies, rooted hair, and painted eyes and lips, but the painting differed in style. German Sashas had the “Sasha” mark on their backs and necks, whereas the English dolls had no marking. All Sasha dolls were sold with a string tied to a medallion printed with the Sasha logo on their right wrists. Vintage German Sasha dolls are more common in Europe…
Collectors Weekly
Sasha Morgenthaler (1893–1975) was a Swiss artist and dollmaker, best known for the “Sasha doll” produced in Germany and the United Kingdom beginning in the late 1960s. Popular with collectors, Sasha dolls are characterized by their individualism, their realistic expressions, their unique color, and the extreme attention to detail in the manufacture of the dolls as well as their clothes. It is said by Juliette Peers that: “Sasha dolls are renowned for possessing a solid intellectuality.” Morgenthaler created face sculpts for her dolls with subtle expressions, not artificially exaggerated smiles: her concern was that children surviving the horrors of WWII would not relate to such happy dolls in times of terror. It was said of Morgenthaler herself, as a child, that “When she was sad, she did not like her dolls uncompromising smiles. Once she grabbed a nail file and scraped off her doll’s false grin…” In her own words, “No grotesque caricature can awaken a child’s true feelings. A piece of wood, barely carved, is far superior to a conventional doll with an exaggerated smile.” Wikipedia
