MoMA
Posts tagged ‘Libuse Niklova’
September 13, 2012  |  Artists, Collection & Exhibitions, Videos
Manufacturing Poetry: The Toys of Libuše Niklová

Libuše Niklová. Sound-producing animals in their original packaging. 1963–65. Hand-painted polyethylene, paper, PVC. Manufactured by Fatra, Napajedla, Czechoslovakia (est. 1935). Archive Fatra, Napajedla, Czech Republic. © From the book Libuše Niklová by Tereza Bruthansová, published by Arbor vitae societas in 2010. Photograph by Studio Toast

The plastic toys designed by Libuše Niklová—original, artistically conceived, and technically ingenious—are a firm favorite with visitors to MoMA’s Century of the Child exhibition. They remind us that many toys manufactured in Soviet Bloc countries like Czechoslovakia during the 1960s and 1970s were anything but pedantic and dreary.