Habitat: Obsessions is a ten-part series of visits to the surprising non-art collections of art-world professionals.
“They’re quite easy to get individually, but you want a full set in its box,” curator Tom Eccles said as he unpacked a box of CBG Mignot toy soldiers in his majestic upstate New York home, where he lives there with his family—and well over a thousand toy soldiers. The collection mostly resides in Eccles’ joint library-office. As his wife prepared a cake in the kitchen, artist Tony Oursler, whose exhibition was about to open at CCS Bard’s Hessel Museum (where Eccles is director), hung out in the next room tinkering on the curator’s piano.
Eccles liked toy soldiers as a child but didn’t start collecting them seriously until the 1990s. “There was a funny shop in the basement of a bookstore on Madison and 82nd,” he said, of his early days collecting in Manhattan. These days he does a lot of his buying online. Some soldiers in his collection date back to 1890. Some of these early pieces were crafted from sawdust and glue, though most are made of lead. “The salt on your fingers affects the lead in the paint,” Eccles said. “That’s how you can tell which ones have been played with.”
Below, a look around Eccles’ collection.
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A Mignot display of armies through the ages in Eccles upstate New York home, with figures primarily from the 1930s.
Royal Horse Artillery but the toy soldier brand Britains.
A Mignot World War 1 scene, featuring soldiers primarily from the 1930s.
Britain's Egyptians and "Arabs of the Desert" on the top shelf and a Mignot First World War scene on the bottom shelf, with portraits of Kafka in the background.
To the left, Britain's Zulus, commonly called "Africa's Savage Warriors" with Canadian Mounties and Greeks.
"These flags are quite hard to ship, as they're held on by a thin weld," Eccles said. "Quite often they’ll arrive slightly broken."
A vintage Mignot box which holds toy soldiers, circa 1930.
Mexican bullfight figures.
U.S. president figures, made by a manufacturer called Marx Toy Company. The last U.S. president figurine made by the company was Richard Nixon. "Nixon is quite hard to find because a lot of people threw him away," Eccles said.
Zinnsoldaten—tin soldiers known as "flats," circa 1900.
Eccles holding a Mignot soldier.
"The skiers are really hard to find. The skis tend to break off in the mail."
A piece created by Tony Oursler sits in Eccles library, which incorporates some of the soldiers from his collection.