Bernard M. Barenholtz and Frank Caplan: Creative Playthings
children’s toy company, est. 1951
The company Creative Playthings designed and manufactured toys to tap the imagination and intelligence of toddlers and youngsters. The durable wooden toys, such as blocks in a variety of shapes – animals, cars, trucks and play people – were a success.
Creative Playthings was founded by Bernard M. Barenholtz and Frank Caplan in 1951 in Princeton NJ. It was preceded by a retail toyshop with the same name (opened in 1945 in New York by Frank Caplan).
Frank Caplan, a graduate of City College and Columbia University, was a nursery school teacher and youth worker in Manhattan in the early 1930’s. He helped create the concept of traffic-free play streets.
Frank Caplan and his wife, Theresa, had a strong interest in the powerful learning potential of play and toys. They were co-authors of several books. Frank Caplan sought the advice from the Museum of Modern Art to guide him in questions of toy design. 1949 Marcel Breuer placed Caplan’s „Hollow Cubes“ in the playroom of the demonstration house built in the museum’s garden.
In 1953 a new division, Play Sculptures, was created to mass produce playground equipment designed by sculptors. One of the first sculptor to work with PlaySculptures was Robert Winston. Caplan also get in contact with Noguchi. In the same year Caplan and his wife Teresa travelled to Europe. They could contract the already renowned play sculptor Egon Møller Nielsen.
In fall 1953 Creative Playthings „burst the scene with a dramatic full-page advertisement of abstract play sculpture“ in the Recreation Magazine. (Solomon p. 29)
Beside advertising the Møller’s play sculptures, the Play Scuplture Division of Creative Playthings announced the co-sponsoring of a nationwide play sculpture competion, together with MoMA and the Parents‘ Magazine, in 1954.
Creative Playthings was sold to Columbia Broadcasting System in 1966, later the name was sold to Donald Hoffman.
sources:
Susan G. Solomon (2005): American Playgrounds. Revitalizing Community Space, University Press of New England, 2005. pp. 26-31.
The New York Times, September 30, 1988. Obituaries: Frank Caplan, 77, Toy Developer.
The MoMA playground competition, 1953
bearbeitet: 10/1/2012