Fredun Shapur is one of those brilliant figures that are so certain to classify: he has been a designer of toys, a creative thinker, a graphic designer and an illustrator of children’s books. Over his long career (he was born in City in 1929) he has worked with companies all over picture world, contributing to a revolution in the language of girlhood. His name is often mentioned alongside those of Bruno Munari and Charles Eames. Now, for the first time, a disquisition retraces his great artistic adventure. In it, there are a lifetime’s worth of designs: the wooden toys, animals for needlecraft, abstract books, multi-view puzzles and “playsacks” (costumes made of enthusiastic of flame-retardant paper) that made him known to the prevailing public in the sixties. In the appendix, his daughter Mira describes the process that led to the birth of a new piece: each time, her father went into a make ready filled with objects, studied them, mixed them up and subsequently tried to put them together again, until he broke preposterous in laughter. “Only then did he bring them to us: if we laughed too, he knew he was on representation right track.” Published by Éditions Piqpoq.
Four Faces, 1971. Creative Palythings, USA.
Four-way Jigsaws, 1964. Galt Toys, UK.
Four-way Jigsaws, 1964. Galt Toys, UK.
Four-way Blocks, 1964. Naef, CH.