Richard Kagan Art

A Richard Kagan dining table/desk with two solid walnut slabs joined by three rosewood butterfly joints tabletop. The trestle base has wedged tenon joints on each end. In excellent vintage condition, some minimal spotting and a couple minor partial glass rings, age appropriate wear. The table was commissioned directly from the artist for a Chester County PA estate. "Richard Kagan was born in Philadelphia and followed a circuitous path to become a photographer. He began doing street photography with a meter less Asahi Pentax camera while a student at Temple University. However, after leaving college to practice Zen Buddhism in New York City, he became inspired by the silent eloquence of handmade objects and pawned the camera to buy woodworking tools. After several years of apprenticeships, he opened his own workshop where he designed and made one-of-a-kind and limited production furniture. Kagan taught at Philadelphia College of Art/University of the Arts for 10 years and exhibited furniture in museums and art institutions throughout the U.S. A chronic back condition put a premature end to his woodworking career and led the return to photography, thus bringing him back to where he began. Since 1990, Kagan has had numerous solo photography exhibitions in the United States, Britain and South America. In 1993, a grant from the Arts Council of Wales enabled an extended project in the U.K. and Europe culminating in an exhibition of his Welsh landscapes at the Royal National Eisteddfod. Not surprisingly Kagan brought to photography some of the same aesthetic concerns with which he made furniture: a quest for quiet, understated and elegant forms. His main bodies of work include Land∙Spirit∙Sky, photographed primarily in Europe; Iron Portraits, a series of austere yet sensuous portraits of antique tools and objects; and Invocations, landscape photographs taken at night on the grounds of Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines in Japan. Richard Kagan's work is represented in public and private collections including those of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the State Museum of Pennsylvania, the Washington Convention Center, Lehigh University and the University of Delaware. He lives and works in Philadelphia and New York." Collections: Furniture. Philadelphia Museum of Art, American Craft Museum, Allentown Art Museum, and more. Selected Furniture Exhibitions, 2015 "50 Years of Works," Snyderman-Works Galleries, Philadelphia, PA, 2014-2015 "Masters of American Craft," Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA, 2003 "Philadelphia Masters" (Invited), The Philadelphia Furniture...

Richard Kagan, born in Philadelphia, followed a circuitous path to become a photographer. Beginning with street photography using a meterless Asahi Pentax as a student at Temple Univ...