Playing with Design: Gameboards, Art, and Culture, features over 100 handmade gameboards from the exuberant collection of Bruce and Doranna Wendel.
The exhibition includes early examples of classic games of Parcheesi, checkers, and chess, as well as hand-painted iterations of Monopoly and Chutes and Ladders made in the United States between the mid-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Playing with Design is divided into thematic sections that explore ideas of history, culture, design, and craftsmanship within American game-playing. Some examples will evoke the familiarity of contemporary games, while others will give material shape to historical ideals, including morality, religion, patriotism, entrepreneurship and imagination. The gameboards on view will speak to underlying concepts of adventure and risk-taking as fundamental to American life, as seen through games organized around the themes of a train journey, a whaling expedition, or a trip around the world.
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