R & Company | 82 Franklin Street | New York NY 10013
R & Company is pleased to announce our second solo exhibition by Renate Müller, 18 March – 26 April, with an Opening Reception on Tuesday, 18 March, 6-8pm, and a Family Day on Saturday, 22 March. Renate Müller and her collaborator Bernd Rückert will be on hand at both events.
About Renate Müller:
Honoring the tradition of German toymakers from the 1800s, Renate Müller is renowned for her handmade jute-and-leather toys—typically animals—which she began designing and producing in the early 1960s. Müller has spent her life in Sonneberg, Germany, which was once the epicenter of world toy manufacture. From an early age, she helped out in her family’s toy factory and later became a student at the Sonneberg Polytechnic for Toy Design, where she was encouraged by a teacher to create toy animals that could be used therapeutically for children with physical and mental handicaps. Inspired by this endeavor, Müller began to create the brightly colored, multi-sized menagerie she is known for today—such as seals, elephants, giraffes, and bears—which debuted at the 1967 Leipzig Trade Fair and were tested (and deemed successful) by German psychiatric hospitals and clinics.
About R & Company:
R & Company represents a distinguished group of historical and contemporary designers whose work is among the most innovative and finely crafted of their time.
Zesty Meyers and Evan Snyderman founded R 20th Century in 1997 to realize their combined goal of promoting a closer study, appreciation and preservation of 20th and 21st century design.
Meyers and Snyderman have garnered international acclaim for their groundbreaking exhibitions and publications and for their commitment to preserving history through their extensive archives, library and private collection. Consistently, Meyers and Snyderman exhibit an extraordinary acumen for discovering and bringing designers to the forefront of the rapidly escalating design market.
R is currently developing exhibitions and publications on the designers it represents — a diverse program that includes work from North America, South America, Europe and Asia produced between 1945 and today.
In addition to the exhibition program and showroom in New York, Meyers and Snyderman offer the work of R designers internationally, contribute widely to publications, and lecture frequently about design.
To find out more visit: www.r20thcentury.com
