Artist

Wendell Castle

born Emporia, KS 1932-died Scottsville, NY 2018
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Photograph by George Kamper. Courtesy Wendell Castle.
Also known as
  • Wendell Keith Castle
Born
Emporia, Kansas, United States
Died
Scottsville, New York, United States
Biography

Born in Emporia, Kansas, Wendell Castle earned a B.F.A. degree in sculpture in 1958 and an M.F.A. in industrial design in 1961 at the University of Kansas. From 1962 to 1969 Castle taught at the Rochester Insititute of Technology and then joined the faculty of the State University of New York in Brockport. In 1980 he established the Wendell Castle School, a nonprofit educational institution offering instruction in furniture design and fine woodworking. In 1988 the school was incorporated into the furniture making program at Rochester Insitutue of Technology.

A self-taught craftsman, Castle has been in the forefront of contemporary art furniture design for more than three decades. Renowned for his superb workmanship and his development of lamination techniques, Castle creates furntiure that combines exotic materials and imaginative designs with a whimsical approach to his craft.

Kenneth R. Trapp and Howard Risatti Skilled Work: American Craft in the Renwick Gallery (Washington, D.C.: National Museum of American Art with the Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998)

Exhibitions

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Connections: Contemporary Craft at the Renwick Gallery
June 30, 2016February 20, 2018
This summer the permanent collection returns to the Renwick Gallery with a dynamic new presentation of 80+ objects celebrating craft as a discipline and an approach to living differently in the modern world.
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Connections: Contemporary Craft at the Renwick Gallery
November 13, 2015March 6, 2022
Connections is the Renwick Gallery’s dynamic ongoing permanent collection presentation, featuring more than 80 objects celebrating craft as a discipline and an approach to living differently in the modern world.

Related Books

studio_500.jpg
Studio Furniture
The eighty-four pieces of studio furniture owned by the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum constitute one of the largest assemblages of American studio furniture in the nation. Three former administrators—Lloyd Herman, Michael Monroe, and Kenneth Trapp—amassed a seminal collection that samples studio furniture’s great diversity. From the carefully crafted stools of Tage Frid to the art deco chest painted by Rob Womack, from the one-of-a-kind Ghost Clock sculpture by Wendell Castle to the limited production stool by David Ebner, the collection highlights the astonishing variety of the American studio furniture movement.

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