This wonderful teak lion was designed in 1958 by the Danish designer Gunnar Flørning (1931-2014). My decision to choose him as the subject for a portrait came after a long period of dithering and changing my mind about which Mid-Century Danish object I should choose – it is a plentiful, delightful, and exciting category, and it was very hard to settle on just one.
Perhaps one of the best known designs from this time is the monkey by Kay Bojesen (1886-1958), created in 1951 to serve as a hanging rack for a children’s furniture exhibition. Almost two decades before producing his monkey, Bojesen had already created a wonderful wooden dachshund, and a lovely terrier called Tim. In the thirties he also produced a beautifully simple rocking horse, which has comfortably stood the test of time and continues to spawn imitations and ‘homages.’ Bojesen believed that toys should be simple, able to withstand heavy use, and leave room for the imagination (his reason for not painting them). He also thought that their lines ‘need to smile’.
Gunnar Flørning realised he had a special knack for shaping wood when, out of boredom, he started carving wooden figures from fence posts during his work as a mechanic in the army. In 1952 he started his work in earnest and over the next decade or so he created a whole menagerie of animals and other wooden figures, until he was apparently forced to close down operations in 1965 due to his allergy to wood dust.
Though he was born 45 years after Kay Bojesen, Flørning created this lion only 7 years after Bojesen’s monkey. He was a Leo, and would apparently say, eyes twinkling, ‘Just remember I am a lion’. Take a look at his other designs, which include a funny whiskered cat (produced in several sizes, sold more than 300,000 in Europe), a dog and a mouse.
His elephant – which he designed together with illustrator Harry Vedøe (see here for an example of his illustrations) – is magnificent and has a lovely straight trunk for chubby hands to grab onto. Perhaps my joint favourite of his designs is this very amusing viking (1962) – I think it’s his straight hair and his thoroughly unthreatening demeanour that do it. You can take a look at the website, to find out more about him and the products they are gradually relaunching.
During my brief time researching, I did not get far with information about possible interactions between designers in Denmark who worked on wooden toys during this time [see for instance, Hans Bølling and his lovely toy dog called Oscar, his classic ducks and his great toy ‘Strit’, which can be contorted into all sorts of shapes]. These years seem remarkably prolific, and it reminded me of other arts and crafts movements, in which the boundaries of design authorship often became blurred. However, it would seem that these designers each followed their own path, no doubt influencing and inspiring one another, but mostly working independently.
I turn to this lion and look at those ‘lines that smile’, as Bojesen put it – and indeed, all of it is a smile, and I am smiling myself.
This week coincided with the start of the school year in Spain and in other countries, so as I was drawing this lion and thinking about it, my mind also pondered ideas around childhood as experienced in our daily lives.
Some of the approaches that I have encountered recently (perhaps especially in the context of this pandemic) seem to treat childhood as a phase to grow out of in your journey to adulthood. School is seen as something that prepares you to be a grown-up, and also a place where adults can deposit you while they are busy working, having reached that final destination of adulthood. It has sometimes felt like childhood is an inconvenience – best get it over and done with, as painlessly as possible.
Somewhat related to this, I was reminded of the (relative) uproar in Spain when author Arturo Pérez Reverte brought out a collection of books called ‘Mi primer autor’ (‘My first author’), with the idea that at long last children would be able to access books by ‘real authors’ rather than children’s literature authors, who we presume are inherently second class and ‘less than’ in this scenario. There is a lot of this, of treating childhood and everything surrounding it as unworthy of full respect and as yet not fully formed, combined with a pompous attitude to adulthood and ‘real, serious things.’
This lion conveys a very different thinking to me. It seems not to draw a line between childhood and adulthood and appears to celebrate the very continuity between them. I see a similar sort of respect for children and childhood as I see in Libuše Niklová’s plastic toys: they avoid cutesiness, and they seem to be about sharing humour and a delight in life that is universal and ageless. Guards are down, no one is taking things too seriously (except, of course, for the very serious business of functionality), and the tone is almost conspiratorial.
It’s interesting to think of these wooden toys originally being designed as durable and functional, the intent being one of accessibility and playfulness. I see now they are mostly sold as classics that many of us would struggle to afford; ‘designer’ objects that are described as appealing for adults and children alike, but I wonder – if we pay close to 70 euros for a wooden figure 18 cm tall, would we be comfortable letting our child chuck it around, or would we end up mostly using it as decoration?
Are they for ‘the child within us’ as adults, but not for actual children? Factors such as production costs are sure to be at play, but it is certainly food for thought.
I like the decided lack of pomposity in this lion, its smiling lines, its bulging cheeks. I’d like to run my fingers over its beautifully rounded feet, and then give it to a child to hold it by its long smooth neck and feel its tickly mane. And together I’d like us to look at it and laugh at its more than passing resemblance to an endearing, regal toilet brush.