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The Teddy Bear
By
Marianne Clay
Strangely
enough, the comeback of the teddy after years of
mass-production was triggered, not by a bear
maker, but by an actor. On television, British
actor Peter Bull openly expressed his love for
teddy bears and his belief in the teddy bear's
importance in the emotional life of adults.
After receiving 2000 letters in response to his
public confession, Peter realized he wasn't
alone. In 1969, inspired by this response, he
wrote a book about his lifelong affection for
teddy bears, Bear with Me, later called
The Teddy Bear Book. His book struck an
emotional chord in thousands who also believed
in the importance of teddy bears. Without
intending to, Bull created an ideal climate for
the teddy bear's resurgence. The teddy bear
began to regain its popularity, not so much as a
children's toy, but as a collectible for adults.
In 1974,
Beverly Port, an American doll maker who also
loved making teddy bears, dared to take a teddy
bear she made to a doll show. At the show, she
presented Theodore B. Bear holding the
hand of one of her dolls. The next year, Beverly
presented a slide show she had created about
teddy bears for the United Federation of Doll
Clubs. That show quickly became a sensation.
Other people, first in the United States and
then all over world, caught Beverly's affection
for the teddy bear. They, too, began applying
their talents to designing and making teddy
bears. One by one, and by hand, teddy bear
artistry was born with Beverly, who coined the
term "teddy bear artist," often cited as the
mother of teddy bear artistry. Today thousands
of teddy bears artists, often working from their
homes all over the world, create soft sculpture
teddy bear art for eager collectors.
Artist bears
also set the stage for a new kind of
manufactured bear, the artist-designed
manufactured bear. Today artist-designed
manufactured bears are offered by Ganz, Gund,
Dean's, Knickerbocker, Grisly Spielwaren, and
others; all offer collectors the opportunity to
own artist-designed bears that cost less due to
mass production.
This increased
appreciation for the teddy bear as an adult
collectible has also increased the value of
antique teddy bears, the hand-finished,
high-quality teddy bears manufactured in the
first decades of the 20th century. In the 1970s
and 1980s, these old, manufactured teddy bears
began showing up in antique doll and toy
auctions, and they began winning higher and
higher bids. Today the current record price for
one teddy bear, Teddy Girl by Steiff,
is $176,000; that bear was sold at Christie's
auction house in 1994.
So what's next
for the teddy bear? Certainly our love affair
with the teddy bear shows no signs of abating.
In 1999, in
just the United States, collectors purchased
$441 million worth of teddy bears. Certainly, as
we begin our journey through a new century, we
certainly need the teddy bear's gift of
unconditional acceptance, love, and reassurance
more than ever. |
