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Kay Bojesen
Some of the most collectible wooden toys from Kay Bojesen are back! Several classic wooden toys by Kay Bojesen are being released again through online modern design retailer nova68.com. Some of these beloved wooden toys include the Bojesen Dog, Hippo and Rabbit.
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| Wooden Toys by Kay Bojesen from Denmark |
Kay Bojesen was one of the pioneers of Danish design. His classic wooden toys including his famous wooden monkey have transformed kids' rooms into jungles for the last half a century. In 1922, Kay Bojesen began designing wooden toys, typically about six to ten inches tall, with moveable limbs. These included a teak and limba monkey (1951), an oak elephant, a bear made of oak and maple, a rocking horse of beech, a parrot, a dachshund, and military figures including a drummer, a private with gun and a standard-bearer. Kay Bojesen's premise in his work was a conviction that his objects should have life, blood and a heart. This is especially obvious in his beloved toy soldiers and wooden animals, which have adorned children's bedrooms with smiles, taking children's dreams to far-flung lands. They stay with you from childhood into adulthood, and we call them classics because we would not want to be without them. And because they were made with love, imagination and intelligence.
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| Wooden Toys by Kay Bojesen from Denmark |
Kay Bojesen actually trained as a silversmith and worked for both Georg Jensen and A. Michelsen. Kay Bojesen not only broke with tradition, but also laid great weight on that his models should be able to be produced using the new industrial production methods.
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| Wooden Toys by Kay Bojesen from Denmark |
On this premise, Kay Bojesen simplified items and created a number of beautiful and practical utensils and tableware. The Grand Prix flatware series corresponds fully with his view on how modern cutlery should be. Designed in 1938 and produced in silver, the later stainless steel edition was awarded the Grand Prix at the Biennale exhibition in Milan in 1951, and came to be known as Grand Prix flatware.
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| Wooden Toys by Kay Bojesen from Denmark |
Kay Bojesen Kay Bojesen started his career, training in retail. In 1906 Kay Bojesen, however, changed direction and entered into an apprenticeship as silversmith with Georg Jensen, who was quick to discover his talent. Things went so well for Kay Bojesen that in 1913 he decided to start for himself. Kay Bojesen ’s world fame is due to his toys, which, at the time when Kay Bojesen began to develop toys, could not have been further removed from the realms of applied art. By 1922 Kay Bojesen had designed wooden toys for a competition. In 1932 he was one of the instigators of the exhibition, Den Permanente, where he showed his toys under the slogan ‘World Première’. This was a definite demonstration that toys could be designed in the spirit of applied art. Kay Bojesen ’s creative ideas came to be expressed in a large number of utensils and tableware, from yarn balls and bowls in various forms to the nutcrackers based on a portrait of Danish prime minister, Thorvald Stauning.
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| Wooden Toys by Kay Bojesen from Denmark |
Kay Bojesen soon developed a taste for more functional design based on industrial production techniques. In the polemic between, on the one hand, those who defended machine work processes and, on the other, those defending craftsmanship, Kay Bojesen also came under fire. After having positioned himself unequivocally on the side of craftsmanship, Kay Bojesen became one of the founders of the exhibition, Den Permanente. Even though Kay Bojesen was trained in the silversmith craft and never completely abandoned this expensive and exclusive material, his great breakthrough was through the more down-to-earth material, wood. E.g. his double, ball-formed teak salad bowls and salad servers from 1949 won the Grand Prix at the Triennale exhibition in Milan in 1954.
Moreover, Kay Bojesen developed a wide range of objects in wood, from plates and ice buckets to more traditional items such as salad bowls.
The online modern design retailer nova68 will be re-releasing these toys on May 4th 2011.