In the summer of 2008, my bosses Evan Snyderman and Zesty Meyers, the owners of R 20th Century, took a trip three trains deep into Sonneberg, Germany to meet toy designer Renate Müller and see her studio. They were already enamored with Müller’s whimsical, extraordinarily well-crafted animals and were hoping to curate an exhibition on her work and share her incredible story.

Trained at the technical college for toy design in Sonneberg (then the toy-making capital of the world), Müller first created the animals as an assignment given by her professor Helene Haeusler to create visually exciting and sturdy toy animals that could be used in a therapeutic setting for mentally and physically handicapped children. The toys were to be used for balance training and orthopedic exercise, as well as for sensory exercises and hand-eye coordination. The details that make them ideal for therapeutic play also make them ideal for any child: the different textures of their natural materials engage children in sensory-motor integration; the simple forms encourage imaginative play; the handles, child-sized scale, and sturdiness help children develop balance and coordination.

They were a breakthrough for the field and a breakout success. The toys were produced throughout the 20th century while Müller’s family’s factory—H. Josef Leven—was under government control and were even awarded the “Good Design” distinction by the Office of Industrial Design in East Germany in the 1970s. After the collapse of the Berlin Wall, Müller regained the rights for her designs and continued to hand-make a limited number each year while also designing and hand-building playgrounds and indoor play areas for hospitals and kindergartens.

At R 20th Century we’d never hosted an exhibition on design specifically for children, though we were all fans of beautifully designed toys. Evan and Zesty’s families were growing, too, and they were beginning to look at design in a new light, trying to find the avenues through which they could share their passion for design with the next generation.

Their initial trip was a result of several months of faxes, Müller’s preferred method of correspondence. As Snyderman wrote in his foreword to the forthcoming book on Müller’s work published by R 20th Century and Whitehaus Media, “The train passed through the stunning bucolic landscape, and along hills dotted with imposing castles and churches. Upon arriving in Sonneberg, we found no one at the station to greet us. Did Renate’s fax machine run out of paper the day we confirmed our trip?”

After a decade of adventures in search of the histories and stories behind 20th century design, Snyderman and Meyers weren’t discouraged. They asked people for directions until they were able to track Müller down and spend a whirlwind two hours interviewing her and filming her demonstration of the unique method she’d created for hand-building and sewing the animals, before catching the last train out of Sonneberg.

For the following two years we communicated with Müller by fax, sporadically at first, and then as the exhibition grew closer I would arrive at the gallery to find a piece of paper waiting in the jaw of the fax machine almost every day. When we sent her the architectural drawings for the gallery, we received a fax saying that she’d sent back a “big letter” with the plans for the show. An envelope arrived a few days later by standard mail containing our architectural plans, on which she’d brought the exhibition to life through her animated, colorful, joy-filled drawings.

In these tweet-filled, internet-ruled days, it was incredible to work on an exhibition planned almost exclusively by fax and letters sent without tracking numbers or frantic first-thing-in-the-morning deliveries. This slideshow is a peek behind the scenes at the evolution of the exhibition “Renate Müller” Toys + Design,” opening today at R 20th Century in New York City. The exhibition remains on view through January 4, 2011.
 

[photo up top by Sherry Griffin]

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