David Levinthal: Small Wonders (American Scene (Washington, D.C.), 4,)
D.A.P./National Museum of Amercian Art, November 1994. Hardcover. Item #140991
ISBN: 1881616398
In Small Wonder: Worlds in a Box, David Levinthal takes as his subject a remarkable series of 1950s playsets manufactured by master toymakers Louis Marx and T. Cohn. As a reflection of the obsessive play of the 1950s and the current nostalgia for such items, Levinthal's tabletop photography allows the reader a bird's-eye view of imaginary tableaux - Legionnaire Captain Gallant in the desert, Fort Apache and the Wild West, boy scouts camping in the woods, and travelers making a stop at a roadside Howard Johnson's. Playset vignettes are like stills from a movie of American popular culture's collective unconscious. In the book's introduction, David Corey explores the history of playsets and their effect on American children in the 1950s.
Price: $9.98