Laurie Simmons (b. 1949) is an American artist known for her photographs of toys, in particular dolls. After working as a freelance photographer for a dollhouse miniature company, Simmons experimented with dramatic lighting so that the dolls began to resemble images of people. This practice allied her with contemporaneous photographers such as Cindy Sherman and Richard Prince. Since the mid-1970s, Simmons has staged scenes for her camera with dolls, ventriloquist dummies, objects on legs and occasionally people, to create photographs that reference domestic scenes. Simmons's Instant Decorator series, which continues her ongoing exploration of figure and interior, was inspired by Frances Joslin Gold's 1976 book of the same title, a do-it-yourself decorating book, which housewives were meant to fill with wallpaper bits and fabric swatches. In Coral Room with Fireplace, furnished in flamboyant colors and clashing fabrics, with paintings hung askew and kitschy accessories, she inserts figures taken from printed sources. This collaged mix of scale, styles and mediums is then photographed, creating a domestic space that is simultaneously seductive and disturbing, evocative and unknown.