Wendell Castle United States, 1932-2018

As a vital figure of the American studio craft movement, Wendell Castle (b. 1932, Emporia, Kansas; d. 2018, Scottsville, New York) dedicated his career to craftsmanship. Castle’s singular approach to furniture is sculptural at its core; the artist created organic forms for his functional designs by stacking laminated wood, hand carving fiberglass, and 3D modelling. Wendell’s inventive techniques advanced the field of traditional craftsmanship, pushing the boundaries of ordinarily constrictive materials, such as wood. In 2007, Castle was awarded the Modernism Lifetime Achievement Award from the Brooklyn Museum. His work is currently in the permanent collections of the Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C.; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The Museum of Modern Art, New York and Art Institute of Chicago, among others.