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Wendell Castle, "No Slouch", 2013
About the Item
Wendell Castle [American, 1932-2018]
No Slouch, 2013
Stained ash
30 x 76 x 27 inches
76.2 x 193 x 68.6 cm
Edition of 8
Throughout a celebrated career spanning six decades, Wendell Castle introduced groundbreaking ways of looking at, thinking about, and making furniture. In doing so, he created a new sculptural vocabulary that became the cornerstone of his practice and established him as the father of the American studio furniture movement. Up until his death, Castle continued to defy categorization through his sheer creative drive.
Born in Emporia, Kansas in 1932, Castle received a Bachelor’s Fine Art in Industrial Design from the University of Kansas in 1958 and a Masters of Fine Art in Sculpture in 1961. He moved to Rochester, New York to teach at the School for American Crafts, Rochester Institute of Technology, and established a permanent studio in the area which would remain active for almost 60 years.
In 1963, Castle pioneered the use of stack lamination, enabling him to compose volumes without being constrained by the inherent limitations of his signature material, wood. He soon gained international recognition and was included in key exhibitions, including the 1964 Triennale di Milano and the seminal touring show Objects USA (1969) which began at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C. During the last decade of his life, Castle achieved some of his most ambitious work of his career by combining the laminating process with 21st century digital technology and realizing works in cast-bronze, which had been a lifelong aspiration.
Castle was the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including four grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, three honorary degrees, a Visionaries of the American Craft Movement Award from the American Craft Museum (1994), the American Craft Council Gold Medal (1997), Master of the Medium Award from The James Renwick Alliance of National Museum of American Art (1999), and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Brooklyn Museum of Art (2007).
His works can be found in the permanent collections of more than 40 museums and cultural institutions worldwide, including: Art Institute of Chicago, IL; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; Minneapolis Institute of Arts, MN; Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal, Quebec; Museum of Arts and Design, New York, NY; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO; Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA; Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, and the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.
Castle died in 2018 in Rochester, NY.
- Creator:Wendell Castle (Artist)
- Dimensions:Height: 30 in (76.2 cm)Width: 76 in (193.04 cm)Depth: 27 in (68.58 cm)
- Materials and Techniques:Ash,Stained
- Period:
- Date of Manufacture:2013
- Production Type:New & Custom(Limited Edition)
- Estimated Production Time:Available Now
- Condition:
- Seller Location:New York, NY
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU1026824071772
Wendell Castle
Wendell Castle was an American furniture maker celebrated for his experimental creations in wood and plastic. He was one of the first to create seating, lighting and tables that resemble sculpture, otherwise known as art furniture.
A founding father of the American Studio movement, Castle was known for his craftsmanship and broke new ground in the 1960s with the stack-laminate technique, which involves layering and then sanding thin sheets of wood. In the ’70s, he transitioned to using gel-coated plastic in bright colors.
Castle integrated both mediums in his designs from the 2000s, which, like his vintage pieces, are characterized by curved, biomorphic lines and whimsical undertones (his Molar chair emphasized playfulness and a venturesome sensibility). Ever the innovator, he integrated computers and robots in his later production process to come up with wildly imaginative forms. Castle was working on a new body of work when he passed away in 2018 at the age of 85.
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