Hanna Kahl Hyland creates hand carved one-of-a-kind wood artist dolls - realistically carved. She also works in other materials but she is an outstanding wood carver.

Hanna is originally from Northern Germany, an area rich in wood carving history. She works primarily in the traditional chisel and mallet wood carving method which is very time consuming. She is still a very productive wood doll sculptor since she has complete mastery over her medium and methods.
 

painted wood

Hanna Hyland's work is FABULOUS. She is well known for her very large wooden dolls which command a lot of attention at doll exhibits, but after carving a little 6-1/4" Hitty doll, Hanna was inspired to work much smaller. Hanna still creates some of her large dolls, but has been creating a lot more 1:12 doll house scale dolls since 2001 and also branching out to paint wonderful, scale miniature, reproductions of famous oil paintings. In years past, her dolls have been featured in Tiffany's windows, at the CFM one-of-a-kind celebrity gallery show and Hanna regularly exhibited her dolls at New York Toy Fair. In 2002 she offered her dolls and miniature paintings at the Philadelphia Miniaturia show.

Hanna often completely paints her wooden dolls as in the European wood carving tradition, but will leave many showing the grain and true color of the wood especially when using highly figured exotic wood species. Hanna enjoys experimenting with several types of wood. She has carved basswood, birch, holly, cocobollo, cherry, mountain ash, pear and more.
 

Little Red Riding Hood one of Hanna's favorite themes 2001

Many of her doll themes are based on her love of story books and tales: Little Red Riding Hood, Princess and the Pea, Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs, Sleeping Beauty and Hitty. Some of these themes have been repeated several times during her long doll sculpting career (perhaps in a different size and style each time). For example: Little Red Riding Hood was one of her very first dolls yet she still enjoyed interpreting this theme again in 2001.  Most of her dolls are one of a kind sculpts. But she also has 3 very popular open editions: Hitty, Heidi, and her Queen Anne inspired dolls. They are NOT traditional editions where each doll is a carbon copy of each other! Each doll is very unique due to the fact she carves each by hand, and often dresses them very differently. Hitty and Heidi are carved in 2 sizes (6-1/4" and 4") but the size of the Queen Anne inspired dolls vary quite a bit.

Hanna is a good personal friend. She is quick with a funny saying and a hearty laugh. We are great fans of each other's art work. Thanks for your encouragement, Hanna.

Hanna's 6-1/4" Hitty Doll carved from basswood in 2000

Special 6-1/4" Hitty carved from mountain ash

Two 4" Heidi Dolls carved from maple in 2002

Old Lady Knittiing 1:12 scale carved from holly in 2002

Mother and child 1:12 scale carved from pear wood in 2002

Sleeping Beauty and Prince dolls by Hanna Hyland bed by Ray Whitledge 1:12 scale carved from Holly in 2001

23" Snow White painted birch wood with 7 polymer clay dwarfs !3" - 14" each 1994

28" Grand lady carved from Cherry wood with a glamourous beaded vest made from an antique lady's evening purse (c.1900) 1996

22" African Queen carved from cocobollo 1999

Mermaid seated 17" walnut 1997

"Picnic Time" Basswood little girl 10" standing about 6" seated with Steiff Mouse

Hanna was asked to make a stage prop for a recent movie: "The Patriot" starring Mel Gibson. Yes, that's Hanna's doll which the Patriot's daughter is dragging all over the place. Actually Hanna made 2 dolls. One was destroyed in one of the scenes but the surviving doll was reportedly gifted to the young actress after the movie was completed.

Since "The Patriot" aired, several collectors have asked Hanna to make a similar doll for them - see an example below. Hanna's Queen Anne style dolls can not be considered a Queen Anne "reproduction". Instead they are Hanna's own interpretation inspired by the elegance of these antique dolls. Hanna enjoys fashioning their fancy costumes which are created from antique materials Hanna has collected over the years. Visit the "Lotz Doll Pages: British Dolls" to compare Hanna's dolls to antique Queen Anne dolls.
 

28" Queen Anne inspired lady similar to the doll in the movie "The Patriot" painted basswood 2000

27" Egyptian Lady cherry wood 1999

26" Girl with Teddy painted basswood 1993

Hanna has also worked with major doll manufacturers to produce editions of her porcelain dolls. These dolls have won several important doll industry awards.

Hanna occasionally still works in porcelain, often firing one of a kind or very limited edition dolls from her home kiln.  Also she occasionally gets together with some of her doll friends to create porcelain antique reproduction dolls for rare special projects.