Object Study: Xenia Cage's Paper Doll

*Originally written November 28, 2022

Tucked in the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum's Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design department, the object at hand is a 1935 paper doll set by American Surrealist artist Xenia Cage. The set includes a blonde, slim, unidentified female doll accompanied by sixteen articles of clothing, ranging from ski suits, skirt suits, and coats to evening dresses, sleepwear, and casualwear. The doll, missing a name and any truly distinctive features, is idealized in appearance, reminiscent of 1930s film stars such as Bette Davis and Jean Harlow. Her stylized wardrobe reflects the fashion trends of the decade, presenting an image of femininity that is elegant, versatile, and socially attuned to occasion and class.

Cage’s paper doll stands out from mass-produced examples of the time for its delicate, handcrafted quality. Created during the height of the paper doll craze, the figure presents a typical stylized pose: her body angled slightly left, her head tilted to the right, and her gaze directed away from the viewer. Her right arm is bent with a clenched fist resting on her hip, while her left arm extends downward, her fingers delicately pointed. The doll has short, wavy blonde hair and defined makeup: heavy dark eyeshadow, red lips, and a soft blush on the cheeks, highlighting her cinematic glamour.

As is standard for paper dolls, the figure is unclothed, allowing the participant to dress her using the included garments. She wears matching undergarments in a warm, ivory tone, adorned with what appears to be lace. Her legs are positioned straight and together, and she wears black slippers on her feet. The doll measures 14 centimetres in height and 5 centimetres at its widest point.

Both the doll and garments appear to be made from a thick, durable paper—likely cardstock—suggested by their colour, texture, and rigidity. While the fronts of the pieces remain mostly intact, the versos show signs of aging, including water stains and dirt specks. Cage’s pencil marks remain visible around the edges of the doll, indicating her design process: sketching the figure and garments in pencil, rendering details, and finishing with watercolour before cutting each piece. The outfits are trimmed with tabs along the edges for ease of attachment to the doll.

The entire set is housed in a rectangular box measuring 21 centimetres in length, 11.5 centimetres in width, and 3 centimetres in depth. The box is white with a pattern of alternating red and green floral medallions. The interior of the box is red with repeating green and white medallions, creating a contrast between the delicate craftsmanship of the doll and the ornamented storage that contains her.

Xenia Cage

1913 - 1995, American

Paper Doll

1935; graphite, watercolor (?) on cardstock, 14 x 5 cm

Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

The doll is accompanied by a carefully crafted wardrobe of garments that conform precisely to her shape, size, and pose, ensuring a “perfect fit.” These playful outfits span a range of occasions and styles, reflecting the fashion ideals of the 1930s. The collection includes twelve full outfits: a ski suit, skirt suits, evening dresses, sleepwear, casualwear, three short coats, and a single tank top. The clothing echoes the styles seen in 1930s fashion magazines, department store catalogues, and contemporary fashion illustrations.

The first ensemble features a cream-colored coat and mid-length skirt set. The coat has a standing collar, eight black buttons down the front, three buttons on each sleeve, and is paired with a wide black belt, a cream cloche hat, and a leashed Scottish terrier. Next is a jade green ski outfit, complete with white boots, fuchsia mittens, scarf, socks, and yellow skis. A nighttime look includes a light pink robe with olive green trim and sash, layered over a white nightgown trimmed in pink and blue lace.

One equestrian-style outfit comprises a bright orange riding coat with three white buttons, white jodhpurs, a white scarf, and black knee-high boots. Another striking ensemble draws from matador-inspired fashion: a white blazer with exaggerated peak lapels, black high-waisted trousers, a white blouse with bronze buttons, and a red sash that drapes at the waist.

A more classic day look includes a white blazer and matching mid-length skirt with a red-ribboned cloche hat and red scarf with black trim. Another ensemble features a deep blue coat and coordinating skirt with a matching clutch, lined with bright red fabric visible at the collar.

The collection contains two evening gowns: one is a sleeveless mint green chiffon dress with a plunging neckline and a blue daisy corsage; the other is a strapless black evening gown overlaid with sheer lace netting that covers the shoulders and entire garment.

Casualwear includes light blue shirtwaist pyjamas, a short-sleeved collared top with four red buttons and matching wide-leg bottoms. A yellow polo shirt with green and pink plaid detailing is paired with wide-leg denim pants, adorned with a brown appliqué on the hips. Another outfit includes a dark blue collared jacket, a matching skirt, and a bright green blouse with an abstract pattern.

The three short coats include a black fur coat, a cherry red coat with a simple collar, and a white cape with diagonal black and yellow stripes. The final garment in the collection is a yellow tank top featuring a bold capital “M” on the front.

S. and J. Fuller, The History and Adventures of Little Henry, 1910

Queen Holden, Movie Stars Paper Dolls,1931

Paper dolls have long been a whimsical part of popular culture and media, most commonly used as children’s playthings and tools for illustrating fashion and historical figures. The act of dressing a paper doll invites participants to construct the doll’s identity themselves, effectively stripping the figure of autonomy and allowing the player to impose their own vision.

Paper dolls first emerged in the United States in 1812 with the commercial release of The History and Adventures of Little Henry. Over the next century, they appeared in newspapers and magazines as both toys and vehicles for displaying the latest fashions to girls and women. By the 1930s, paper dolls based on film stars like Shirley Temple became popular, serving as a marketing strategy aimed at children.

The golden age of paper dolls spanned from 1930 to the mid-1950s. During the Great Depression and World War II, rationing halted the production of toys made from materials like tin, rubber, fabric, and glue. Paper, however, remained inexpensive and readily available, making paper dolls a practical and popular alternative. Often packaged in books or catalogues, the dolls and their outfits were meant to be cut out by hand and arranged by the user. These books were mass-produced, cementing paper dolls as an accessible and beloved pastime.

An example of this commercial trend is Movie Stars Paper Dolls by Queen Holden, released in 1931. Unlike Cage’s handcrafted doll, Holden’s mass-produced dolls have more defined facial features, detailed outfits, and even articulated arms to alter their poses, underscoring the contrast between personalized artistic expression and mass-market entertainment.

Paper dolls are typically packaged in books and catalogues, with pieces meant to be cut out and arranged by the participant on a flat surface. These books were, and continue to be, mass-produced. This context underscores a unique feature of Xenia Cage’s Paper Doll—each piece bears visible pencil tracings along the edges, revealing its handcrafted nature. In leaving her mark, Cage asserts her agency over the figure, distinguishing her work from the impersonal, manufactured dolls of the time.

Cage’s fashion choices for the doll raise broader questions about femininity and identity in the 1930s. As a form of craftwork, paper dolls have historically been feminized objects. Following World War I, many women entered the doll-making industry, then dominated by men, but were often viewed as “unfeminine” or “undainty.” To counter this perception, some adopted titles like Madame, presenting themselves as nurturing mothers or refined wives. During the 1920s, doll manufacturers also began including pamphlets with instructions on hygiene and proper feminine etiquette, reinforcing domestic ideals in the postwar era.

Cindy Sherman, Doll Clothes, 1975, Film, super 8mm, shown as video, monitor, black and white. Collection: Tate.

Beyond playthings, paper dolls have also served as vehicles for artistic commentary on gender and identity. For example, in her 1975 short film Doll Clothes, Cindy Sherman animates a photographic cutout labelled “Doll,” which browses a selection of outfits before admiring herself in a mirror. Her moment of self-recognition is interrupted by human hands that strip her of her clothing and return the pieces to a book. The cutout’s lack of control reflects how women are subjected to external forces of standardization through fashion, media, and social expectations.

Interacting with paper dolls allows the participant to shape and control the figure’s identity through clothing choices. Yet, this act also reveals how identities can be imposed and manipulated. As Anaïs Nin wrote, it becomes “the process of peeling off false selves, the programmed selves, the selves created by our families, our culture, our religions.” Cage’s doll, then, is more than a stylish figure—it’s a reflection of the cultural tensions between self-expression and social conformity, agency and artifice.

Born Xenia Andreyevna Kashevaroff in Juneau, Alaska, in 1913, Cage was an artist and designer considered to be on the cutting edge of Surrealist sculpture during the 1940s. Her work, often small-scale constructions made of wood and string, reflected the experimental spirit of the movement. Cage was also a percussion musician through her collaborations with her then-husband, avant-garde composer John Cage.

She began her studies at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, before transferring to the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, where she studied under artists Henrietta Shore and Jean Charlot. Early in her career, her drawings—often depicting Russian Orthodox churches inspired by her priest father—were exhibited at the de Young Museum in San Francisco in 1933. Around this time, Xenia became involved in craftwork and bookbinding, collaborating with Hazel Dreis, a prominent bookbinder in San Diego.

Xenia met John Cage in 1934 at an Arts and Crafts Cooperative Shop run by his mother. A year later, she created her Paper Doll and married John, who would go on to become one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. Their creative partnership extended into music, with Xenia helping him source percussion instruments from junkyards and hardware stores.

Cage’s career in the visual arts gained traction in the 1940s. She was included in two major New York City exhibitions: Exhibition by 31 Women (1943), curated by Peggy Guggenheim, and The Imagery of Chess (1944), organized by Julien Levy. Her work in the latter included a hybrid furniture/sculptural piece—a table bench designed to complement Max Ernst’s chess set. The crisscrossing rods beneath the bench echoed the imagined paths of the chess pieces, highlighting Cage’s interest in structure, motion, and play. These projects placed her in dialogue with major modernists like Ernst, Marcel Duchamp, and Man Ray.

Despite her growing reputation, Cage gradually stepped away from public exhibitions. By the 1950s, she was working behind the scenes at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum. In 1968, she became a cataloguer and conservator at the Cooper Hewitt Museum, where she remained until her death in 1995 at the age of 82.

Surrealism, which emerged in Paris after World War I, expanded quickly into other media and geographies, arriving in the United States in 1932 with an exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York. By the 1940s, artists were applying Surrealist principles to design, including furniture, posters, tableware, and fashion.

Fashion became a particularly rich site for Surrealist exploration, especially due to its ties to beauty, illusion, and the body. Many male Surrealist artists portrayed women as fragmented, fetishized forms, often using metaphors of sewing or assembling to suggest the body as a constructed object. This is seen in Joseph Cornell’s Untitled Collage (1931) and Oscar Dominguez’s Electrosexual Sewing Machine (1934), where sewing machines become stand-ins for eroticized, mechanized femininity.

The female body also appeared frequently in the form of mannequins—objects poised between life and artifice. A 1938 Surrealist exhibition in Paris featured mannequins altered by artists like Dali, Duchamp, and Yves Tanguy to evoke Ovid’s myth of Pygmalion, the sculptor who fell in love with his own creation.

By the late 1930s, Surrealists were working directly with the fashion industry. They collaborated with designers, illustrated magazines, and created window displays. As World War II loomed, Surrealism offered a kind of escapism, a dream world in contrast to the harsh realities of global conflict. Salvador Dalí’s Woman with Head of Roses (1935) drew from fashion illustrations, while his 1944 piece Dream vs. Reality appeared in Vogue. Fashion illustrator Edouard Benito also created Surrealist-influenced sketches for designers like Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiaparelli.

Italian fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli collaborated with artists to create surrealist garments that reimagined the human body through fantasy and humour. To the left is an Evening Coat (1937), a collaboration with French surrealist filmmaker Jean Cocteau, which plays on the motif of the double image. In the center is a Suit and Necklace (1938) adorned with plastic bugs that appear to crawl across the mannequin, animating the garment. On the right are details from an Evening Ensemble (1938), including metal acrobat buttons and intricately illustrated horses pasted on the fabric, transforming fashion into a spectacle.

Designers such as Netty Ferro, working for the fashion house Worth in the late 1930s, also incorporated surrealist motifs in their fashion sketches (V&A). These designs bear a resemblance to Xenia Cage’s Paper Doll—both in technique and in the stylization of wardrobe.

The function of the paper doll is to allow the participant to engage with the body and fashion. Similar to surrealism which explores the human body through desire, as we have seen in Schiaparelli's designs. Fashion is a gendered tool, it can connote power and status through a garment. The paper doll extends beyond its role as a trend carrier and promotional commodity into a carnal exploration.

Julien Levy and Peggy Guggenheim’s exhibitions were revolutionary for their inclusion of marginalized artists and designers, many of whom were overlooked by major institutions in New York City. Despite their impact, these exhibitions were poorly documented, leaving many of the featured works—including those by Xenia Cage—untraceable. Much of Cage’s oeuvre has been lost, and her legacy is often eclipsed by the success of her ex-husband, composer John Cage. Through close examination of overlooked works such as the Paper Doll, we can begin to recover the significance of Cage and other women artists erased from dominant narratives.

What becomes increasingly evident in this context is the predominance of male perspectives in surrealism, especially in depictions of the female body as fetishized, eroticized, and objectified. By contrast, Cage’s Paper Doll offers a surrealist lens through which to understand women's lived experiences with identity, fashion, and embodiment. Unlike the mannequins of surrealist men, often passive vessels of male fantasy, Cage’s doll is expressive, mutable, and personalized.

Xenia Cage remains an enigmatic figure, and her Paper Doll captures what lingers of her eclectic practice. Only a handful of her works have survived. Her works on paper, in particular, reflect her early experiments in drawing on the West Coast, prior to her emergence as a surrealist sculptor in New York. The Paper Doll set embraces the femininity and fashion of the 1930s through Cage’s own eyes and hands. It transforms a mass-produced form into something deeply personal, offering her a degree of agency over representations of women.

The interchangeable outfits allow the doll to inhabit multiple identities: equestrian, skier, gala attendee, perhaps. Similarly, Cage herself inhabited many roles throughout her life—bookbinder, sculptor, musician, and conservator. In reclaiming these lesser-known works, we begin to reconstruct the fragmented legacy of Cage and countless other women artists obscured by history. Cage’s Paper Doll not only challenges the boundaries between art and play, but it also reveals the layered and intimate relationships women maintain with their bodies, identities, and clothing.

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