Children

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Playing with Modern Design
The Wobblies show their wobbliness, which is cleverly illustrated on their box by faint wavy blue lines. Interestingly, there are two definitions of the word wobbly. The first is “inclined to wobble; shaky.” A Wobbly (capitalized) is also “a member of the Industrial Workers of the World, an international, revolutionary industrial union founded in Chicago...
Call for Adventurers
During the 1920s and 30s, child-rearing experts pointed out the negative effects of mass recreation, especially movies, to the growth of American children. They argued that as passive spectators, children would likely bring home images of glamour and a sense of the social power of consumer goods after attending movies since what they saw in...
Living in a World of Nursery Rhymes
As one of the best-known British decorative artists of the Arts and Crafts Movement, Walter Crane’s design touched upon the fields of books, textiles, wallpaper, stained glass, and ceramics. Children’s education played a considerably important part in the subject matter of Crane’s book illustration and wallpaper designs. In 1875, Crane (1845-1915) was commissioned by Jeffrey...
A Miniature Playhouse
Imaginative author Robert Louis Stevenson wrote in his 1884 essay, A Penny Plain and Twopence Coloured, “If you love art, folly, or the bright eyes of children, speed to Pollock’s…”[1] The toy theatre was a beloved pastime in 19th-century England that appealed to the creativity and craftsmanship of children and adults. Benjamin Pollock inherited his...
This Leopard is Mine
This is a charming children’s wallpaper that would also be appropriate for a powder room. The design is naively styled with its cast of three leopards, exotic flowers, and lush foliage. The leopards are performing various acts of lounging or exploring, with the one directing his gaze directly at the viewer. The design is quite...
The Always Delightful Alice
This charming children’s wallpaper illustrating the tale of Alice in Wonderland contains many of the delightful characters we remember from childhood: the Mad Hatter, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, Queen of Hearts, the caterpillar, and of course Alice, both big and small. This was designed by Tony Sarg, artist, illustrator, puppeteer, and balloon designer for...
Wallpaper With a View
This style of paper is referred to as a figural landscape or landscape figures. Wallpapers in this genre usually contain three to four different landscape views, quite often centered on a theme. They can focus on harbor views, the hunt, or more humble scenes such as this one, which might be called The Homecoming, or...
German Chicks
This adorable wallpaper was meant for a child’s room, and came to the museum within a collection of samples by German manufacturer Marburger Tapetenfabrik. In creating this pattern the designer successfully manipulated a faddish aesthetic into something that remains pleasing and relevant well beyond its manufacture date. Little birds are represented by blocks of color...
Soviet Playtime—Characters and Cosmonauts
This Soviet era trade catalog for toys was intended for non-Russian audiences, and was produced by the Raznoexport Company in Moscow. This firm sold all sorts of consumer goods of Russian manufacture for export; the text is in English and French. Textiles, rugs, tobacco, bicycles, cut glass, and building materials among other goods were marketed...