Profile of Maria Jose Santos

Maria Jose Santos was born in Barcelona (Spain) in 1972. She spent her early childhood in A Coruña. At the age of ten she moved to Asturias, a region where she has lived ever since. She studied in the University of Oviedo, where she took a degree in law.

Maria Jose began the creation of dolls in 1997 after attending classes of reproduction of antique dolls, where she learned the classical technic of polishing, baking and enamelling of porcelain.
 
After several months of self-taught training in modelling moulds and confection of costumes, her first doll was a classical dancer, 1/10 scale. After that, she created new characters of famous ballets. Her customers were dancers and people fond of dance.

The next step in her career as an artisan took place in the exhibition 'Casas de Muñecas y Miniaturas' in Oviedo where she presented a scene, 1/12 scale, of the ballet The Sleeping Beauty. In this exhibition she had the opportunity of meeting Caroline Hamilton, the organizer of London Dollshouse Festival, who selected Maria Jose to enter for it in 1999. Since there she has taken part in it.

Encouraged by the reception of her work, Maria Jose participated in international fairs and exhibitions of miniatures and dolls: Paris Creation (France), Eins zu Zwölf (Germany), Feria Internacional de Miniaturas in Madrid (Spain), etc.

Her work has been published in magazines such as Puppen & Spielzeug (Germany), Maison de Pouppèe (France), and in the Spanish ones Miniaturas and Muñecas. She has contributed to this latter since 1999 writing articles on fashion in the 19th century.

In the year 2000 the Puppenhausmuseum of Basel (Switzerland) has purchased some of her dolls in order to add them to the miniature collection of the museum.

Nowadays Maria Jose goes on creating dolls on order and working on new projects.

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