Serious Play: Design in Midcentury America

Exhibition Website

Sep 28 2018 - Jan 6 2019


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. 

During the 1950s and ’60s, a number of factors came together to make this bold design innovation possible. Diverse materials and manufacturing techniques opened up possibilities for new approaches to design and larger-scale production. Larger disposable income and leisure time of a growing middle class offered more possibilities for designers to help Americans discover a new way of living at home through thoughtfully designed objects. An emerging focus on child development prompted an interest in children’s furniture and placed a fresh emphasis on the importance of smart toy design. Pervasive Cold War anxiety created a desire to bring positivity and escapism into everyday spaces. Architects and designers that took advantage of all these new opportunities thrived

Co-organized by the Milwaukee Art Museum and the Denver Art Museum, the exhibition includes over 200 works in various media, ranging from works on paper, models, textiles, furniture and ceramics to films, toys, playground equipment and product design. Organized around three themes—the American home, child’s play, and corporate approaches to design—the exhibition encourages visitors to consider how design connects to their daily lives.


Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website. 
Image: Lucia DeRespinis for George Nelson Associates, Eye clock, 1957. Manufactured by Howard Miller Clock Company. Collection of Jay Dandy and Melissa Weber. Photo by John R. Glembin 

Whether or not you go, the exhibition catalog, Serious Play: Design in Midcentury America, is a lively exploration of eclecticism, playfulness, and whimsy in American postwar design, including architecture, graphic design, and product design. This spirited volume shows how postwar designers embraced whimsy and eclecticism in their work, exploring playfulness as an essential construct of modernity. Following World War II, Americans began accumulating more and more goods, spurring a transformation in the field of interior decoration. Storage walls became ubiquitous, often serving as a home’s centerpiece. Playfulness can be seen in the colorful, child-sized furniture by Charles and Ray Eames, who also produced toys. And in the postwar corporate world, the concept of play is manifested in the influential advertising work of Paul Rand. Set against the backdrop of a society that was experiencing rapid change and high anxiety, Serious Play takes a revelatory look at how many of the country’s leading designers connected with their audience through wit and imagination.

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  • Various Media
  • American
  • 20th Century
  • Design
  • Henry P. Glass
  • Ray Eames
  • Charles Eames
  • Herbert Bayer
  • Eva Zeisel
  • Ray Komai
  • and others

Exhibition Venues & Dates