Rocking Horses and Doll Houses: Swedish Wooden Toys Exhibit at BARD in Manhattan

Swedish Wooden Toys through February 28, 2016

 John Carlsson. Dollhouse and furnishings, 1912. Belonged to Elsa Carlsson. Wood, glass, metal, various materials; wired for electricity. By Roma Capitale — Sovrintendenza Capitolina ai Beni Culturali —Collezione di giocattoli antichi, CGA LS 32; Photography by Bruce White

Swedish Wooden Toys is the first in-depth study of the history of wooden playthings in Sweden from the seventeenth to the twenty-first centuries. Remarkable doll houses, puzzles and games, pull toys, trains, planes, automobiles, and more are featured in this colorful exhibition, on view at Bard Graduate Center located in Manhattan’s Upper West Side Historic District through February 28, 2016. Although Germany, Japan, and the United States have historically produced and exported the largest numbers of toys worldwide, Sweden has a long and enduring tradition of designing and making wooden toys — from the simplest handmade plaything to more sophisticated forms. This exhibition not only reviews the production of Sweden’s toy industries but also explores the practice of handicraft (slöjd), the educational value of wooden playthings, and the vision of childhood that Swedish reformers have promoted worldwide.

Swedish Wooden Toys is curated by Susan Weber, Bard Graduate Center founder and director, and Amy F. Ogata, professor of art history at the University of Southern California and former professor at Bard Graduate Center.

The modern concept of childhood emerged in Europe during the seventeenth century, when the period from infancy to puberty became recognized as a distinct stage in human development. As the status of childhood gained in social importance, children acquired their own material goods. Special furniture, such as cribs and feeding chairs, and amusements, including rattles and dolls, became increasingly common in elite and middle class European households. The notion of the innocent child who learned through play was fully established by the middle of the eighteenth century, and toys began to gain importance as a means of demonstrating family status and as tools for teaching children and preparing them for adulthood.

Gemla Leksaksfabrik AB, Rocking horse (1900) © Roma Capitale — Sovrintendenza Capitolina ai Beni Culturali —Collezione di giocattoli antichi; photo by Bruce White

In eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Sweden, wooden toys were the ordinary amusements of the poor. Carving small animals from the plentiful resource of wood was a traditional occupation for rural Swedes. By the mid nineteenth century, as the cult of childhood innocence surged, the Swedish toy industry produced wooden animals, carts, dolls, sleds, and furniture for a rapidly growing domestic market.