Kai Boysen's wooden toys: How a monkey hanger became a symbol of Scandinavian design

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Kai Boysen's toys, funny monkeys, staunch wooden soldiers and adorable zebras have become the standard of Scandinavian design. Several generations of children have played with his cute wooden animals, and the production of toys around the world has been guided by Boysen's creations - naive, environmentally friendly and of impeccable quality. However, at first they refused to accept his ideas - with a very funny argument …

Kai Boysen was born in 1886, in the family of Ernst Boysen, the publisher of the Danish satirical magazine Octopus. The elder Boysen devoted a lot of time to the development of creativity in his children. Together they carved and assembled toys, generalized in shape, simple and inventive at the same time. Kai, as his father wanted, really grew up as a creative boy. From a young age, he seriously dreamed of a career as a jeweler and was determined. In 1910, in Copenhagen, he completed a course in jewelry, then studied in Germany, after which he learned the secrets of craftsmanship in Paris … There Kai Boysen worked as a metal craftsman for several years, creating cutlery, teapots and silver cups. The young master did not like the already outmoded, but still in demand, Art Nouveau with its complex flowing forms. He wanted something innovative and happily welcomed the emergence of new, clean and rational forms.

He was not indifferent to the fate of Danish industry and stood at the origins of Danish design - in the years when this word did not yet exist in its modern meaning. Together with his colleagues, Boysen formed the Den Permanente, an association of artists and artisans. Until 1981, Den Permanente was a place where Scandinavian designers exchanged experiences, opened exhibitions, entered into creative agreements …

In 1919, Boysen became a happy husband and father. Before his career as a toy master, there were still ten years left, but already with the birth of his son, the designer began to think about changing his activities. The son was growing up, and Boysen decided to experiment. After all, he had the best toy tester in the world - a little kid.

Beginning in the early 1920s, Boysen began designing wooden toys, usually six to ten inches high, with movable limbs. These included a teak and limb monkey, an oak elephant, a bear and a hare made of oak and maple, a rocking horse made of beech, a parrot, a dachshund and toy soldiers of the Danish Royal Guard - a drummer, a private with a rifle and a standard bearer. Little by little, figures of boys and girls, skiers and dancers were added to them …

Boysen in his works combined the principles of folk toys and functionalism - smooth shapes, movable elements, durable materials, hard surfaces, "smiling", in his own words, lines … No unnecessary details - these wooden figures must be safe. Toys should not repeat reality - they should inspire, develop the child's creative imagination.

He opened his own small shop-workshop, selling toys, dishes and furniture. There he worked in his white coat in front of customers, and his wife stood at the counter, accepting and issuing orders. With his own hands, Boysen created more than two thousand copies of wooden toys that were very popular in Scandinavia. Compatriots called him "a man who loves to play." Of the many models and variations of his toys, the most famous was the monkey, capable of clinging to all accessible surfaces with its long legs - the master left the children to decide for themselves whether it would hang on a chandelier or hold a bouquet of flowers in their paws. She was born in 1951 and did not have an exact resemblance to any of the existing species of monkeys, having received a little from each. It was conceived as a hanger - durable and ergonomic, but Boysen decided to add some play to the functional product. The wooden monkey, along with the rocking horse, was to become a symbol of Scandinavian design, but its path to fame was not easy.

Boysen, already a well-known and titled master, proposed it for consideration by the country's official commission for the selection of the best national souvenirs. Strict experts were outraged: “Monkey? You are crazy - there are no monkeys in Denmark! " Boysen just chuckled: "Nobody saw the mermaids with their own eyes either!" Soon after that, he received an order for a thousand copies - though not from the state, but from the director of that very Den Permanente. And then the wooden monkey came to … the museum. It became part of the permanent collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in the 1950s.

Despite the fact that Boysen remained in the history of world design as a "toy master", the spectrum of his interests remained wide enough. At the same time, Boysen worked on the creation of children's furniture, did not stop making decorations and household items. All in the same 1951, he received the Grand Prix at the Milan Triennial not at all for wooden zebras and monkeys, but for a functional set of stainless steel cutlery. This set, also called the "Grand Prix", was donated for permanent use to the Danish royal court. However, Boysen said: "Everyone has the right to good design!" That is why the "Grand Prix" was available not only to kings, but also to people from the middle class … Kai Boysen remained a cheerful, childishly spontaneous person all his life, capable of charming literally everyone. He passed away in 1972, and his creations gained eternal life. His descendants are engaged in the preservation of the master's heritage. In 2011, Boysen's youngest granddaughter, Sousse Boysen Rosenquist, who had shown a keen interest in design since childhood, revived her grandfather's business. Since then, Boysen's toys have been regularly reissued and available to customers all over the world, the samples are kept in museums, and the name of the “master's toy” has been forever inscribed in the history of world design.