Mirka Mora’s interest in dolls and puppets, or soft sculpture, began with her theatre and mime training. As an adult she also collected antique dolls, before finally embarking on creating them herself in 1970. The characters she birthed in cloth felt, to Mora, like substitute children; at the time, her sons were living apart from her.

Indeed, despite being mere paint and cloth, Mora's dolls felt alive. When they were first exhibited in 1971, John Reed wrote:

“You are not entering an “exhibition” but rather a new world, a world of illusion… a country that may be strange but it is also beautiful and compellingly familiar. This is the artist’s country”.

Elephant Doll brims with love and imagination, hugged for decades, a vessel for the artist’s spirit and enduring legacy. In the later stages of her career, Mora held doll-making workshops for members of the public, many of whom reported the experience as life-changing.

In the simplicity and curiosity of the doll, Mora discovered something miraculous - pure delight. For collectors of Mora, this is an elephant to never forget.

Mirka MORA (1928 - 2018)
'Elephant Doll'
Hand-painted soft sculpture
Image Size: 42 x 64 cm
Dimensions: 42 x 64 x 9 cm

Condition: Fair: Signs of wear, reflective of age and material; discoloured on underbelly and front leg. Toy intact.

© Mirka Mora / Copyright Agency