“Hello Dolly,” a new exhibit featuring 35 antique dolls opened on September 2nd in the museum’s first floor gallery. The dolls are from the collection of Brenda Ennis, a Lincoln City resident and avid doll collector. Ennis told us she began collecting antique dolls seventeen years ago, “I had always loved dolls and took very good care of mine as a child. As an adult, I inherited two antique dolls from my grandmother and decided to collect more. I started with composite dolls at first, but they were usually not in such great condition and were too hard to repair. So then I started collecting porcelain dolls, and I just kept adding to the collection.” Today she has so many dolls in her collection, over 500, that it was hard to choose which dolls to display. Dolls selected for the exhibit date from the 1860s to around 1920. Some dolls are very rare, made by notable doll makers Johann Daniel Kestner, Pierre Francoise Jumeau and Francois Gaultier. They are all exquisite examples of the craft, mostly fashion dolls that include the original clothing made by hand for French fashion designers. The exhibit will run until August 2010.

Dolls of Our Childhood

Who can forget the favorite dolls of childhood? Remember character dolls like Anne of Green Gables, Snow White and Shirley Temple? Paper dolls that were dressed up and redressed constantly? These and other fondly remembered dolls are featured in a new museum exhibit that opens on February 3rd in the museum’s upstairs gallery. Part two of our History of Dolls exhibit takes us from the French fashion doll of the 19th century to the popular dolls that were played with and adored by children from the 1930s through the 1960s. Dolls in this display are from the collection of Brenda Ennis and Susan Webb, as well as the museum’s collections.

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