Emérita Malo (1926-2002) Colombian, (2) Signed Dioramas. Small sewn figures in two locations, a fabric store and a dry goods store. Both signed and stamped on back, dated 1980. 

Condition: Commensurate with age. 

Size (Largest): 11 3/4 x 8 x 6 1/4 in. 

#3419 . 

Emérita Malo was born into a humble peasant family in 1926 in a small house on the outskirts of Popayán, Colombia. Although she had no formal education and spent nearly her entire life within the span of a few blocks in her local neighborhood, she became internationally celebrated at the end of her days for the native dolls she created. Her mother passed on to her a traditional method of rapid, tight stitching that stretched back many generations to the invading Spaniards, using a simple thimble, short needle, and a few rags to produce highly detailed figures, often religious in nature. Inspired by the porcelain Nativity miniature scenes the conquerors brought with them, the women of Palmira and Popayán began to make imitations with leftover fabrics, torn or old silk stockings, pieces of wire, thread scraps, and faces painted with embers and annatto, which they sold to working class families. For nearly fifty years Malo toiled in almost complete obscurity, surviving the horrors of La Violencia and decades of political unrest, until her dolls came to the attention of a journalist named Jaime Paredes Pardo. The resulting book, a combination of photographs and oral history from Malo with further commentary by Pardo, was titled “The Rag Nativity Scenes of Popayán,” first published in 1976 by Arco Publishing in Bogotá. The following year it won the “Most Beautiful Book in the World” Award at the Leipzig International Book Fair, and she was invited to Bogotá to receive a national tribute for her artistic contributions to the country. Embarrassed at her inability to spell her own name but determined to honor the thousands of women in the region who had dedicated their lives to the craft, Pardo taught her to write and went with her when she flew on a plane for the first (and last) time to the capital for the honor. By 1979 she had to build a large workshop attached to her home to accommodate several new assistants as well as the flocks of tourists who came to see and buy her work every day. Her dolls became one of the most sought-after crafts in all of Colombia, and a major part of the Christmas traditions of the country each year. Tragically, her eyesight began to fail by this point, completely deteriorating in the late 1980s, but she continued to stitch until the day she died, June 11th, 2002.

Commensurate with age.