How Childhood Games Shaped Modernist Artists: A Madrid Exhibition

The Fundación Juan March in Madrid presents 'El juego del arte. Pedagogías, arte y diseño', an exhibition exploring how 19th-century educational reforms influenced the avant-garde movements of the early 20th century. The show, curated by Spanish sculptor, academic, and collector Juan Bordes, brings together works by Paul Klee, Piet Mondrian, Lionel Feininger, Pablo Picasso, Le Corbusier, and Bruno Munari, alongside a vast collection of historical documents assembled by Bordes over a lifetime. The central thesis, first articulated in Bordes' 2007 book 'La infancia de las vanguardias' (untranslated outside Spain), argues that the games played by modernist artists as children—shaped by the pedagogical innovations of Friedrich Fröbel, inventor of the kindergarten—profoundly influenced their artistic practices. The exhibition presents educational materials, including games, drawing manuals, and monographs by educators such as Maria Montessori, creating visual parallels with artworks. While direct evidence linking specific childhood games to artistic choices is lacking, the exhibition offers a compelling and plausible narrative. Bordes writes: 'I have always thought that art and science produce the fastest and deepest transformations, but only education, with its slow, generational work, can build the space in which pioneering artists and scientists appear.' The show runs until June 23, 2019, at the Fundación Juan March in Madrid.