Silversmith and designer Kay Bojesen had a very special talent. He was able to bring wood to life, and he became world-famous for creating wooden toys that had soul and an impish sense of humour. With more than 2000 pieces to his name, Kay Bojesen was one of Denmark’s most prolific artisans in the 20th century. He is best known for his playful and cheerful monkeys, royal life guards and other wooden toys, but his wide-ranging production also includes jewellery, cutlery, teapots and silver goblets.
The beautiful wooden family of animals has a timeless appeal that crosses all ages. Perhaps best known for his Monkey, there are in fact a small family of animals that carry the Bojesen name, each one equally charming. They are deliberately simple, solid and tactile, aimed at inspiring children to play and interact with them, combining contrasting timbers and moving parts that subtly bring out the features of each animal, as well as making them beautiful to look at. Story-telling played a large part in their conception – they were designed to be a family of friends, their story aptly able to change depending on who was telling it. They serve as a tool for the imagination.
In 1934 he designed the Dog, a comical-looking Dachshund that is still part of the Bojesen collection today and typifies its characteristics. He avoided over-complicating the forms with unnecessary detail and instead created a fun embodiment of how a child might picture the animal. “The lines need to smile”, he said once when asked about his designs, and they really do. In 1951 came the Monkey, in 1952 the Bear, in 1953 the Elephant, in 1955 the Hippo, and finally the Rabbit in 1957, a year before Bojesen’s death.
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One of the few places in the world where you could go to purchase a Bojesen animal was in Kay Bojesen’s own design store in Copenhagen, ‘Den Permanente’. This was a co-operative craft and design retailer which he set up in 1931 to showcase the best of Danish-designed furniture and objects. It was something of an institution in Copenhagen and where an entire generation of Danes first sourced these appealing little toys.
While Kay Bojesen continued to win acclaim for his skill as a silversmith, receiving the prestigious Grand Prix design award at the Milan Triennale in 1938 for his cutlery collection, it is his simple family of wooden animals for which he will most be remembered. The way he managed to imbue small pieces of wood with so much character has ensured they have been acknowledged as icons of Danish design, and their timeless appeal and relative affordability have made them highly collectable pieces for the home. Like all the best toys, they engage with the inner child in each of us.
“We are sliding into a time of simplification where the practical design of everyday things will be an important demand to consider” – Kay Bojesen
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