Male skier

This hollow cast lead ice skater is among the many dime store figures designed by Olive Kooken (1904–1964) for New Jersey’s Barclay Company. At 22, Kooken moved from Kansas to study at New York’s Art Students League. She worked making molds for the candy industry and later modeled art deco figures for lamps. Her knack for figural sculpting landed her a job at the Barclay Company in the early 1930s, where she sculpted prototypes for the majority of their civilian line of skaters and railroad figures. This figure and others from her winter-themed line remained in production through the 1960s.