Swedish Wooden Toys

'catnip for anyone interested in antique toys' - New York Times

A fascinating and beautifully produced book about Swedish toys from 1700 to the modern day

The Swedish toy industry has long produced vast quantities of colourful, quality wooden items that reflect Scandinavian design and craft traditions. Accompanying an exhibition at the Bard Graduate Center, this superbly illustrated book, including specially commissioned photography, looks at over 200 years of Swedish toys. 

The exhibition and accompanying catalogue is the first in-depth study of the history of wooden playthings in Sweden from the seventeenth to the twenty-first century. Featuring remarkable doll houses, puzzles and games, pull toys, trains, planes, automobiles, and more, it explores Sweden’s long and enduring tradition of designing, making, and consuming wooden toys—from the simplest handmade plaything to more sophisticated, mass-produced forms—and examines the cultural embrace of the wooden toy as a sign of timelessness and quality.

Featuring rattles, full-size rocking horses, dollhouses, and building blocks to skis, sleds, and tabletop games with intricate moving parts, Swedish Wooden Toys 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. 

Joint winner, 2014 Awards of Excellence for Catalogue Publication.

Details

• Author: Amy F Ogata, Professor of 19th- and 20th-century architectural and design history, Bard Graduate Center, New York 
• Hardcover: 400 pages | 360 colour illustrations
• Date published:  June 2014
• Language: English
• Delivery: Allow 1-2 weeks
• ISBN: 978-0300200751
• Product Dimensions: 26.4 x 19.7 x 3.4cm