Loncraine Broxton - Innovations & Executive Toys 1969-1997

In the late 1960s, former art-school friends Richard Loncraine and Peter Broxton formed a partnership to make sculptures and desk-top toys for the burgeoning UK gift market. With a background in kinetic sculpture, concrete poetry, and the experimental art scene of 1960s London Loncraine Broxton imbued their products with flair and inventiveness. Their first design, Ballrace, a stylish chrome version of Newton's cradle, became the defining executive toy of the 1970s and 1980s. It was followed by a series of memorable, playful products such as elegant kinetic sculptures, games for the home and garden, as well as items which revealed the pair's knack for the outlandish: a giant match concealing a cigarette lighter, a double-sized deck chair, a pen disguised as a red mullet fish, address books with perfectly tailored jackets. Their liquid puzzles like the Mercury Maze with a real blob of mercury, or their Perrier and Champagne games, wittily characterise the mood of the 1980s. This new book brings together the huge range of Loncraine Broxton products with commentary by Richard Loncraine and Peter Broxton, telling the story of how they spent three decades devising unlikely ideas for products to amuse and delight.

Four Corners Books, 2024
Hardcover with lenticular cover, 160pp 
220 x 160mm