- Artist or Maker
- Gere Kavanaugh
United States, Tennessee, active California, Los Angeles, born 1929 - Title
- City-Planning Toy (prototype)
- Date Made
- circa 1965
- Medium
- Painted wood, canvas
- Dimensions
- Mat: 24 × 24 in. (60.96 × 60.96 cm)
Weight (Toys): 3 lb. (1.4 kg)
- Accession Number
- M.2012.146.1-.22
- Collecting Area
- Decorative Arts and Design
- Curatorial Notes
In 1966 Progressive Architecture magazine argued that the point of giving a child modern toys was not “whether she will grow up to like ‘modern’ architecture, but whether she will be pleased by matters of form, relationship, integrity.” Among the examples illustrated were Gere Kavanaugh’s specially commissioned wooden blocks, whose abstract forms allowed children to imagine a limitless range of city plans.
(California Design, 1930–1965: "Living in a Modern Way," 2011-12)
- Selected Bibliography
- Kaplan, Wendy, ed. California Design, 1930-1965: Living in a Modern Way. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2011.
- Kaplan, Wendy, ed. Living in a Modern Way: California Design, 1930-1965. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2013.
- Selected Exhibition History
- California Design, 1930–1965: "Living in a Modern Way". October 1, 2011 - June 3, 2012
- California Design, 1930–1965: "Living in a Modern Way". October 1, 2011 - June 3, 2012
- California Design, 1930–1965: "Living in a Modern Way". March 20, 2013 - June 3, 2013
- California Design, 1930–1965: "Living in a Modern Way". March 20, 2013 - June 3, 2013
- California Design, 1930–1965: "Living in a Modern Way". July 6, 2013 - September 29, 2013
- California Design, 1930–1965: "Living in a Modern Way". July 6, 2013 - September 29, 2013
- California Design, 1930–1965: "Living in a Modern Way". November 2, 2013 - February 9, 2014
- California Design, 1930–1965: "Living in a Modern Way". November 2, 2013 - February 9, 2014
- California Design, 1930–1965: "Living in a Modern Way". March 29, 2014 - July 6, 2014
- California Design, 1930–1965: "Living in a Modern Way". March 29, 2014 - July 6, 2014