Paper Play: Kindergarten to Contemporary Art

Explore the innovative use of paper by contemporary artists, who use this humble material in very simple ways—folding, weaving, cutting, and stacking—to make extraordinary works of art. Friedrich Froebel (German, 1782–1852), the inventor of kindergarten, counted such activities with paper among what he termed his “gifts,” or tools, intended to encourage discovery and learning in his young students. Froebel’s gifts influenced architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright and kindergarten teacher Johannes Itten, who introduced Froebel’s methods to the most famous art and design school of the early twentieth century, the Bauhaus, influencing a generation of abstract artists. Today, artists continue to push and explore the possibilities of techniques that many learned in kindergarten.