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| Build the Town Block Set (prototype) 1941 painted wood, painted metal made by Ladislav Sutnar Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
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| Sunny Suzy Child's Iron ca. 1955 painted metal Wolverine Supply & Mfg. Co. Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
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| Wobblies 1949 painted wood Paul Bonhop Toys, Inc. Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
TOY SHOP
"Hebbel, in a surprising entry in his diary, asks what takes away 'life's magic in the later years'. 'It is because in all the brightly coloured contorted marionettes, we see the revolving cylinder that sets them in motion, and because for this very reason the captivating variety of life is reduced to wooden monotony. A child seeing the tightrope-walkers singing, the pipers playing, the girls fetching water, the coachmen driving, thinks all this is happening for the joy of doing so; he can't imagine that these people also have to eat and drink, go to bed and get up again. We, however, know what is at stake.' Namely, earning a living, which commandeers all those activities as mere means, reduces them to interchangeable, abstract labour-time. The quality of things ceases to be their essence and becomes the accidental appearance of their value. . . . "
"In his purposeless activity the child, by a subterfuge, sides with use-value against exchange value. Just because he deprives the things with which he plays of their mediated usefulness, he seeks to rescue in them what is benign towards men and not what subserves the exchange relation that equally deforms men and things. The little trucks travel nowhere and the tiny barrels on them are empty; yet they remain true to their destiny by not performing, not participating in the process of abstraction that levels down that destiny, but instead abide as allegories of what they are specifically for. Scattered, it is true, but not ensnared, they wait to see whether society will finally remove the social stigma on them; whether the vital process between men and things, praxis, will cease to be practical. The unreality of games gives notice that reality is not yet real. Unconsciously, they rehearse the right life. The relation of children to animals depends entirely on the fact that Utopia goes disguised in the creatures whom Marx even begrudged the surplus value they contribute as workers. In existing without any purpose recognizable to men, animals hold out, as if for expression, their own names, utterly impossible to exchange. This makes them so beloved of children, their contemplation so blissful. I am a rhinoceros signifies the shape of the rhinoceros. . . . "
– from Minima Moralia (1951) by Theodor Adorno, translated by E.F.N. Jephcott (1974)
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| Graf Zeppelin 1930s painted metal JC Penney Co. Minneapolis Institute of Art |
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| Miniature Teapot 1827-29 silver made by Henry Flavelle of Dublin Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Rattle, Whistle, Bells, and Teether ca. 1735-45 silver, coral made by Richard and Peter van Dyck of New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
During many past ages pieces of coral could be found in common use as baby-teethers, often in expensive and ingenious settings (for the babies of the privileged, needless to say). In addition to attractiveness and practicality, coral offered protection from childhood illnesses, and, more particularly, protection from enchantment.
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| Toy Figures 1883 painted tin Holland Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Lion 1845-55 painted earthenware by John Bell USA Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Elephant on wheels ca. 1905 painted metal USA Minneapolis Institute of Art |
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| Paddle Doll 2030-1802 BC painted wood, string, beads Egypt Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Jointed Teddy Bear 1929 printed cardboard designed by Bess Bruce Cleaveland Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
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| László Moholy-Nagy Dolls on the Balcony 1926 gelatin silver print Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
Curators at the Met are keen to point out that Moholy-Nagy was a Constructivist and not a Surrealist – even though his image above is built around the near-universal surrealist cliché of the dismembered, dehumanized doll.
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| Doll 5th century BC terracotta Greece Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
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| Doll ca. 1700-1750 painted wood, textiles Holland Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |