Catalogue - My teddy bear - French Version

Description

The immense popularity of the teddy bear, now found in every child's bedroom, conceals a paradox: how did this ferocious, wild animal become the symbol of childhood? The teddy bear was born at the same time in two different places. In 1902, the toy was invented in the United States in reference to Theodore Roosevelt - hence its Anglo-Saxon name, Teddy's bear, which became teddy-bear. In Germany that same year, Margarete Steiff marketed her first teddy bear, made from needle cushions, which was a resounding success in Europe and America. Since the first examples made of mohair and wood straw, which were heavy and rigid, the teddy bear has become softer and gentler. They have been adorned in bright or pastel colours, so that they can be transformed into cuddly toys, the transitional object studied and theorised by the paediatrician Donald Winnicott. The bear now reigns over a whole menagerie of stuffed animals, as well as children's fiction, thanks to Winnie the Pooh, Mishka and Paddington. More surprisingly, fashion designers are also keen to revisit the bear. Today, through the figures of the panda and the polar bear, the bear is the symbol of climate change and an endangered natural world. Through five essays and three thematic sections, this catalogue traces the history of the teddy bear, from its first steps to its transformations and successes. It also examines our relationship with bears since Antiquity.
Finally, it is supported by a rich iconography that offers a wide range of old and more recent teddy bears, compared with man's representations of bears over the centuries.