In a country where winter is the longest season of the year, toys for playing outdoors in the snow are a fundamental aspect of childhood. This part of the exhibition features a variety of sleds, skis, and skates, as well as toys to be played with on frozen lakes and in the snowy landscape.
The puzzles and games in this exhibition show how designers and manufacturers directed both children and adults toward the acquisition of specific abilities in such activities as puzzles, games of chance, croquet, table tennis, and bowling. A homemade set of Rävspel, an old Scandinavian game, and BRIO’s Labyrinth, introduced in the 1940s suggest how playtime offered the opportunity to tune fine motor skills.
The vision of a wholesome Swedish childhood is strongly associated with wooden educational objects. A pounding bench and stacking clown toy taught large motor skills and hand-eye coordination, while blocks and building sets taught patience and skill. Smallscale kitchen and cleaning toys instilled the work of daily life in Swedish children, and the toy loom became one of the most familiar Swedish educational toys thanks to required schooling in slöjd, or handicraft. As the market for commercially made toys grew in the second half of the nineteenth century, the major manufacturers developed mail-order catalogues and sold their goods in shops and department stores.
Popular Culture in Swedish Toys: Although the tradition of wooden toys endures, popular culture marks many of the objects in the exhibition. In the twentieth century, licensed characters from Disney films, and homemade toys include jigsaw-cut and jointed Popeye and Kewpie figures. Images of black entertainers and a dancing minstrel, in addition to an 'Indian'play set, raise the specter of racism and cultural stereotyping in children's playthings.
Swedish Wooden Toys, edited by the curators Susan Weber and Amy F. Ogata, has been published by Bard Graduate Center, in collaboration with Yale University Press. This superbly illustrated volume examines over 200 years of Swedish toys, from historic dollhouses to the latest designs for children. Featuring rattles, rocking horses, dollhouses, and building blocks to skis, sleds, and tabletop games with intricate moving parts, it also addresses images of Swedish childhood, the role of the beloved red Dala horse in the creation of national identity, the vibrant tradition of educational toys, and the challenges of maintaining craft manufacturing in an era of global mass-production. The first substantial publication in English on the history and meaning of Swedish toys, it includes twelve essays by experts in the field and is available in the Gallery and online at store.bgc.bard.edu.
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