Kay Bojesen: The Story Behind the Wooden Animals
We’ve stocked Kay Bojesen at The Scandinavian Shop for as long as we can remember. The wooden monkeys, animals and birds have been on our shelves for years, and are popular presents because they’re so iconic. But we’ve also recently started stocking Kay Bojesen jewellery, the first shop in the UK to have it, which is very fitting given Kay Bojesen’s background. It’s almost as if everything’s come full circle.
Kay Bojesen
A silversmith first
The first thing most people think of about Kay Bojesen is wooden animals. But he originally trained, and thought of himself, as a silversmith. Born in Copenhagen in 1886, he trained in Georg Jensen's workshop in the early 1900s, and was taught by Jensen himself. Jensen rated him highly, and wrote about him saying that 'a young man with such ability could go far'.
After his apprenticeship, Bojesen travelled throughout Europe, and was strongly influenced by the functionalist thinking that was reshaping design at the time. When he returned to Copenhagen, his silver became simpler and cleaner, his designs built on the idea that an object should earn its place by working well rather than by decoration. At the time art nouveau was in its heyday, so it was a markedly different approach. But it’s an ethos that reflects what’s now recognised as typical Scandinavian design principles: that things should be well-crafted, beautiful and functional. That thinking – that cutlery, for example, should serve the meal, not distract from it – produced Bojesen's Grand Prix cutlery, which was named after winning first prize at the 1951 Triennale di Milano world fair. The original was made in silver but was later produced in stainless steel and is still used in Danish embassies today.
Kay Bojesen died in 1958 at the age of 72. Over his lifetime he created more than two thousand designs in silver, steel, porcelain, bamboo and wood. His widow Erna ran the company until her death in 1986, after which the family continued for a few more years before selling the rights to Erik Rosendahl. The Rosendahl Group continues to produce the Kay Bojesen wooden designs to this day. Bojesen’s youngest grandchild, Sus Bojesen Rosenqvist, took over the rights of her grandfather’s silver and cutlery in 2011, which she now produces as Kay Bojesen ApS.
Kay Bojesen with some of his wooden monkey toys
Wooden toys
Kay Bojesen started making wooden toys in the 1920s. Bojesen's animals were never meant to look lifelike. He wanted simple, solid shapes a child would recognise and want to play with, and that's a large part of why they've aged so well.
In 1922 he won a Danish award for his toy design, and credited his son Otto for his endeavour. He claimed that little Otto was so strong and heavy-handed that he was breaking all his toys!
From then until his death, Bojesen designed a wide array of wooden toy animals and figures. Not all were made during his lifetime – some, like the songbirds, were designed but not produced. Others, like the elephants and hippos, were widely acclaimed. But it’s probably the wooden monkey that Bojesen is best known for.
Kay Bojesen’s wife Erna and son Otto
The monkey (that started as a coat rack)
The Monkey is the Kay Bojesen piece everyone recognises, even if they don’t know the name behind it. In 1951, he was asked to design a coat rack for an exhibition of children's furniture. He made a wooden monkey: long arms to bring the hook down to a child's height, short legs to hold a hat and scarf. Function came first, but it was the character that stuck. He sold six hundred from his shop in the first month alone. More than seventy years on, it's recognised around the world as a symbol of Danish design.
Many a wooden monkey has been bought for a christening or baby gift (or just because someone wanted to have one) and kept in a family for a lifetime. They’re iconic, appeal to kids and grown-ups and just make us happy – and there aren’t many things which manage to do all that and look good on a shelf at the same time!
Kay Bojesen Small Teak Monkey
The songbirds
Two Kay Bojesen Songbirds – the pink and red one is named after his daughter-in-law, Ruth
Bojesen created his songbirds in the 1950s — inspired, we like to think, by the birds on his family's flower-filled terrace — but they were never put into production. In 2012, they were recreated using photographs from the family album, many named after someone in Bojesen's life. Ruth, for example, was named for his Swedish daughter-in-law. Since then the collection has grown to include the lovebirds (a very popular wedding present), coloured versions and parent-and-child pairs (a lovely baby gift). And each year the brand now produces a colourful new limited-edition Year Bird.
Pair of wooden Lovebirds
Year Bird Birk 2026 Dark Green
Kay Bojesen Liv & Lykke Birds Soft Pink Pair
The Hippo
The Hippo turned 70 in 2025, and its anniversary is marked by some special editions in black or hippo grey painted beech. Bojesen himself had a hippo on his desk, and the story is that he designed it because he wanted something to keep the pencils on his desk in order — its mouth is hinged to open or close, and very helpfully holds a pen or pencil.
The black version is actually painted with blackboard paint, and comes with its own bit of chalk so you can write on it. A lot more fun than a bog standard post-it note…
Kay Bojesen Hippo Black
Kay Bojesen Hippo Grey Small
Royal Marine
The Royal Marine — navy uniform, white-striped collar painted by hand — is one of Bojesen's uniformed figures, back in production after the originals were discontinued in the late 1950s (he was one of a small cast that once included a guardsman, a postman and a police officer). Being just along the coast from a naval base ourselves, he's one we've a particular soft spot for.
Kay Bojesen Royal Marine
Santa Claus
We’d normally only talk about Christmas things at that time of year, but we can’t not include this. The original Kay Bojesen Santa Claus dates from 1948, and was reintroduced in 2013. For kids (and big kids like us) nothing says Christmas more than Santa, and this cheery figure made of painted beech can be brought out and played with year after year. At time of writing, Santa is out of stock but will be back before Christmas. And we’ve got Mrs Claus, Santa Clara, too.
Kay Bojesen Santa Claus
Kay Bojesen Santa Clara
New: Kay Bojesen jewellery
Kay Bojesen jewellery is now here — the iconic animals reimagined as pieces you can wear, which we think is brilliant. The jewellery is charming and unusual, but it also feels really fitting given that Bojesen trained as a silversmith and worked in silver all his life. And we’re delighted to be the first shop in the UK to stock them.
We’ve the monkey (of course) as well as the songbird, elephant, bear, rabbit and dachshund, in both silver and 18-carat gold-plated silver. Like the wooden pieces, they make a thoughtful gift for a birth, christening or any other occasion, in a form you can wear every day.
Kay Bojesen Jewellery Monkey Necklace Gold Plated
See all Kay Bojesen jewellery →
Why they've been as popular for as long as they have
In short, its because people keep them. A lot of modern homeware is trend-led, and so gets admired for a while and then packed (or given) away. Bojesen's animals tend not to — they might be given as a gift to a child, but usually stay in the family and move from a kid’s room to sitting on a desk or a shelf. The oiled-finish wooden pieces carry that enduring mid-century aesthetic, and the more colourful pieces are just a lot of fun. And that's the real appeal: they're well made, full of character, and easy to live with for a very long time.
See the full Kay Bojesen collection →
