Serious Play: Design in Midcentury America

Exhibitions

Ray Eames with the first prototype of The Toy, 1950.

© Eames Office LLC (eamesoffice.com)

Overview

  • September 28, 2018–January 6, 2019

  • Baker/Rowland Galleries

  • Free for Members

  • Included with admission

Serious Play: Design in Midcentury America explores the projects of over 40 designers who advocated for playfulness and whimsy within their creations for corporations, domestic interiors, and children. The exhibition presents play as a serious form of inspiration, experimentation, and problem solving. In midcentury America, such playful design occurred against the backdrop of a booming consumer market and as a counterbalance to Cold War–era anxiety. Furniture, toys, textiles, films, posters, ceramics are among the objects featured.

Co-organized with the Denver Art Museum

Support

Presenting sponsors

  • This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts
    National Endowment for the Arts logo

  • National Endowment for the Arts logo
  • National Endowment for the Arts logo

Supporting sponsors

  • In Memory of L. William (Bill) Teweles

  • BSI

  • Melinda and Ken Krei

  • The Terri and Verne Holoubek Family Foundation

  • Anonymous donor