WENDELL
CASTLE
E M B R AC I N G U P H E AVA L
FRIEDMAN BENDA 515 WEST 26TH STREET NEW YORK NY 10001
A PIECE IS ALWAYS IN TRANSITION Jennifer Olshin Wendell Castle needs no prelude. A quiet powerhouse of sculptural design for six decades, his towering influence has been codified in writings, teachings across the discipline, and his works are in over sixty museums. Legions of collectors, curators, and students just simply call him “Wendell.” Perpetually thinking, drawing, and making, Castle is regimented in practice and measured in speech, but his devotion is extreme. From what appears to be a serene and paced pursuit, his forms emerge with muscular vitality. He continues to challenge his own assumptions, in a quixotic approach that leaves him open to provocative, at times delightfully curious solutions. •••
Entering Castle’s world usually starts at the Rochester airport and evolves en route to the studio where ideas are solidified. An early boomtown, Rochester sits on Lake Ontario facing Canada and beyond. Poised between nature and innovation, it is today a technology hub while being just a drive away from Niagara Falls. The city is a striking metaphor for Castle himself, whose sophistication and reach is global while he has remained entrenched in the local, and in so much that is identified with being an American design phenomenon. Castle’s ritual of picking up his guests at the terminal is well known. It’s not unusual to find him waiting in his vintage Jensen Interceptor or the MGTC he bought in the year 1963. But it’s on the drive itself, that anyone in the passenger seat realizes that for him, the journey is as crucial as the destination. Careening through the leafy suburbs (where he has lived and worked since 1968) with Castle at the wheel, a voice dedicated to expression of life through design becomes audible. With Embracing Upheaval, a desire for motion is palatable. Expressed with weaving lines and heroic emergences, Castle is on an urgent quest for undiscovered vantage points. In contrast to the peripatetic cars that occupy his thoughts, his own works force viewers to move around them for new angles and experiences.
The new works defy a set point of view. Not unlike 17th-century Baroque masters he has looked to at various points in his career, Castle exploits his material to bring out continuously evolving narratives. As he grapples with time, redefinition and growth, the works often metamorphosize and reflect his own 1994 declaration that “a piece is always in transition.” The two series’ that make up Embracing Upheaval are Free Forms, and Blocks. With Free Forms, he reassesses the arboreal forms of his past and with Blocks, he uses his own vernacular to re-interpret monuments of art history that have been formative for him. FREE FORMS
Free Forms are additive, each is built up in layers using Castle’s signature stack laminated technique and each deviates in the pursuit of a unique sculptural statement. With Free Forms, the technique he pioneered over decades, serves now only as a bolster to his ideas. The attention to functionality is merely a practical concern. Neither the technique nor the purpose however, is the subject matter; they are the means with which he flows volume to volume and to the whole. The freedom implied in Free Forms is intended to mirror the movement of jazz improvisation. In both jazz and these works, incremental changes trigger evolutions of larger structures. Castle goes further in referencing jazz by titling his pieces after the great cities associated with this quintessential American genre including, The Big Easy (New Orleans), The Big D (Detroit), and Hornet’s Nest (Charlotte), all made in 2017.
Free Forms grow up from the ground but are approached from above. Their meandering logs hug the earth and overlap like trees strewn upon each other in a phalanx of organic trajectories. On these piles, in a place where art and gravity co-exist, Castle sets floating seats. Carved, shell-like pods, with scalloped edges are enhanced by the graphic texture of their open grained surfaces. It is the ambiguity of these crowning forms that define the series and open questions.
With each work, we are forced to wonder: did they sprout from the logs, or did they fall from the sky? Castle has returned to these questions throughout his career. His
proclivity
to
create
ambiguous biomorphic forms, to eliminate expected elements (like legs) or upend perspective, dates back to some of his earliest and most celebrated works.
To be titled, 2016
In one of his first major exhibitions, Fantasy Furniture (at The Museum of Contemporary Crafts, 1966) his work was hailed for its revolt against the prevailing aesthetic of the mid-century modern. It was the height of counter-culture in America and Castle’s “wandering forms” were compelling as testaments to transformation, possibility, and unbridled fun. It was at this time that Castle told Life magazine, “I have no special interest in form following function. I want to be inventive and playful, to produce furniture to make life an adventure.” (July 29, 1966) Decades later, the Free Forms of today are free, further emancipated from any constraints. They are inspired more by philosophical considerations and his spontaneous ‘squiggly lines,’ are often drawn as independent elements. Castle sketches daily and these sketches continue to be schematics for potential volumes. Only after he sees the line on paper then he can see which of his doodles will spark new sculptural direction.
Once Castle commits to a drawn design, he turns to the modeling, carving a foam block into a miniaturized version of a final work. This process, where he infuses his chosen lines with dimensionality and tests the cumulative behavior of each part in relation to the whole by shaping the model, is where his sculpture is born. Once the model is complete, he digitally scans it, maps out the laminated pieces that need to be cut, and then builds the work.
To be titled, 2016 Ultimately, Free Forms are exercises that explore the balance of elements and tempt the eye with the attraction of a sinuous line moving outward into space and metaphorically into the future. They take the sitter on a journey of what could be. BLOCKS The Block pieces propose inevitable form – they posit a kind of Force Majeure – not yet seen but imminent. Whereas the Free Forms are additive, these are subtractive. They are revealed not in a sketch but as Castle’s rasp, chisel and saw make decisions, and ideas take shape. For the Blocks, large stacks of laminated boards are bored into at the Castle’s will to create quirky, wall-like masses that in turn sprout cantilevered seats.
He prepares a rough-hewn foam model (which is treated the same way as the Free Forms), but it’s through the carving process where he synthesizes the parts and his artistry is expressed. In Within, 2016, and
Awakening, 2017, chisel and mallet marks create patterns and the u-shaped seats slide out of shaped monoliths. There is freedom in the direct-carving process; it delights in vicissitudes of the hand-made. With this method, the pieces seem to unstoppably materialize and even after they are complete, they continue to exploit the tension between positive and negative space, to misguide the eye. Another method in which Castle “fools the eye,” or subverts the process of creation in the final pieces is by using the seating pods to forcefully displace the viewer’s position. In Free Forms, the pod is located at the intersection of the meandering logs, allowing the sitter to have a privileged vantage point from where to imagine the possible extensions of the branches into space and introducing the idea of alternative futures. But the sitter rests in a central location, at a paused point in time – in fact a more static state, as compared to the Blocks. In Blocks, due to the subtractive process of carving and its implied material limitation, one could expect the sitter to be in a recessed location and hence, more static. However, it is precisely the location of the pod off of the block, which places the sitter in an act of gravitational defiance and transforms the sitter into the subject itself. The act of experiencing floating and limitless perspectives is in fact a dynamic extension, within which lies all possibilities of extension and future. The notion of direct carving introduced by Romanian-French sculptor Constantin Brancusi (1876-1957) at the turn of the 20th century, was a formative influence on Castle, who had seen Brancusi’s sculpture at the Nelson Atkins museum sometime in the late 1940s-1950s. The museum, not too far from his home in Kansas, was the first place he could see such works in person and he returned to visit often. The purity of Brancusi’s shapes, most notably his ovoids, polished surfaces, and ability to exploit the natural qualities of materials left an indelible impression on Castle.
Seven decades later, he still has a dialogue with the work of Brancusi and of the other proponents of organic abstract sculpture including Jean Arp (1886-1966), Henry Moore (1898-1986), and Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988). Each of these artists were represented in the museum collection and studied by the young art student. Each devoted to simplicity in form and fidelity to materials as Castle remains to this day and each plays with perspective and point of view. The more existential and powerful art historical reference for Castle’s Blocks, is Michelangelo’s Slaves/
Prisoners (1520-1534). Emerging from marble slabs as if they were destined to do so, they stand today at the Accademia in Florence, Italy. They are sometimes seen as “unfinished” but the grooves and marks from mallets and chisels suggest deliberate gestures (and a parallel to Castle’s irregular carving). The Slaves/Prisoners are traditionally seen as representing the eternal struggle of humankind to be free of physical restraints. They embrace and glorify upheaval and with that, these works have eternal implications. It is tempting to wonder how far Castle has considered these Renaissance ideas. Given his penchant for returning to the same questions throughout his career, its conceivable that a future body of work will address it all again, in some new way. •••
The mark of creativity, is on the one hand its unfamiliarity and on the other, its recognizability as such. The dream of an artist is to offer an unequivocal expression, a unique voice, and an actual distinguishability within the infinite world of ideas. With the two bodies of work presented in Embracing Upheaval, Castle achieves this - a romantic and undaunted next chapter that manifests the flights of his imagination through the possibilities and limitations of his creations. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The French pilot and author of Le Petit Prince, once wrote, “If you want to build
a ship, don’t drum up people together to collect wood and don’t assign them to tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.” When looking at the works in Embracing Upheaval, the words of Saint- Exupéry come to life.
Wendell Castle giving a student demonstration in his studio in Scottsville, New York, 2017
A LEAP OF FAITH Wendell Castle I am a man of questions. I ask questions of my work, I question myself. When I graduated from high school I might well have been considered to be the least likely to succeed. I was not the best student in my art classes at The University of Kansas. I did very well but there were others who seemed more talented. Yet, I am the only art student from KU to ever be given an Honorary Doctorate by KU. How does something like that happen? Where are all the others who were more talented than I? I’m not sure I really know. I do, however, have some thoughts on the subject. I have often thought about the randomness of the Cosmos. My life has been a series of random events. Chance events play a much larger role in life than most of us think. Randomness often plays out in subtle ways. In the world of art, most career paths entail a complex sequence of steps, each depends on those preceding it. If any of those earlier steps had been different, the entire career path would almost surely have been different, too. Some of those initial steps will have been influenced by seemingly trivial, random events. But randomness will, at times converge in a very fortunate way. More important still is recognizing that importance, and even more important yet is to know what to do when the realization hits you. Somehow, I had the realization that by combining furniture with sculpture, a new art form could be created. I believe creativity can be simply defined as: doing something for the first time that is valued by others. A true artist or designer is someone who does something for the first time, something human, something that touches others. It’s not art if the world (or at least a small portion of it) is not transformed in some way. Most of all, it’s not art if there is no risk. It’s not the risk of financial ruin (it could be); it’s the risk of rejection and failure. Art requires the artist to care, and to care enough to do something even when we suspect that it might not work. Art, like life itself, is a voyage of discovery. I had to lay one brick on another, set thousands of ideas on paper, before getting an authentic one dragged up from my guts. I haven’t the slightest idea what my future work will look like. My drawings and models are the slenderest of help.
I may scrap them all. I invent, distort, deform, inflate, exaggerate, compound and confuse as I see fit. I obey only my own instincts, which often I do not understand, myself. I often draw things I do not understand but feel secure in the knowledge that they may at some point become clear and meaningful. I have faith in myself. I have had to learn to think, feel, and see in my own way which can feel like the hardest thing in the world. Whatever progress there is in art comes not from adaptation but through daring. Having grown up in Kansas, I was profoundly affected by the dustbowl and the great depression. More worrisome was the fact that I’m dyslexic, so my early school years were terribly difficult for me. As no one had yet recognized the condition, I Wendell Castle working in his studio in Scottsville, New York, 2017
received no help.
I think everyone just thought I was stupid. I was not good at anything. I was a failed academic, a failed musician and a failed athlete. I was, however, good at daydreaming and drawing, neither of which were valued. I believe it was Einstein who said, “Everyone is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it’s stupid.” Being dyslexic may be helpful in thinking in ways that are different from how everyone else thinks about things. Picasso was likely dyslexic; he had no trouble thinking about things in a different way. When asked by a gentleman at an opening of his work why he didn’t paint women the way they really looked, Picasso replied, “How do they look?”
The questioning gentleman took out his wallet and showed Picasso a picture of his wife. “This is how a woman looks,” he said. Picasso replied, “She’s very small, isn’t she? And flat, too!” I believe in going where there is no path and leaving a trail. Everything we know we must leave for others. We should have no secrets; share everything you know. If you think for a moment your secret finish, your secret shaping, etc., sets you apart, then you don’t have much going for you. For me, the reason creativity is so exciting is that when I am involved in it, I feel I am living more fully than during other parts of my life. The excitement of the work in the studio comes close to the ideal fulfillment we all hope to get from life. Creativity also leaves an outcome that adds to the richness and complexity of our universal experience. I believe it’s best to be an outsider. We can continue to innovate for our entire lives as long as we work to maintain the perspective of an outsider. We need to be willing to leave behind the safety of our expertise. Although we live in a world that worships insiders, it turns out that gaining such experience takes a toll on creativity. To spend a great deal of time at anything is to become too familiar with it. I must constantly try to forget what I already know. I had to learn to think in new ways, in an uneducated way, my own way, which is not easy. I had to throw myself into the current knowing I may well sink. The great majority of artists are throwing themselves in with life preservers around their necks and more often than not, it’s the life preserver that sinks them. Whatever progress there is to be in life, comes not through adaptation, but through daring. The greatest danger is becoming a prisoner of familiarity. The more often we do anything in the same way, the more difficult it is to think in any other way. Remember, what things look like is a convention, not a truth. Which reminds me of a story: There was this little girl in drawing class. The teacher looked over her shoulder and asked what she was drawing. The little girl said, “I’m drawing a picture of God.” The teacher said, “But no one knows what God looks like.” The little girl replied, “They will in a minute.”
Art has always been a form of redemption, a transfiguration of the commonplace. The very act of turning something into an image, whether it is a painting or a chair, alters and aggrandizes it. Great art can be made out of ordinary ideas that have been transfigured into something quite extraordinary. Art is omnivorous. It appropriates all forms and assimilates all materials. The result should be a kind of paradox; that ability to hold the tension of opposites, embrace uncertainty and ambiguity. These are critical characteristics of contemporary art, and remember it is important to trust your intuition. Intuition is the unpredictable human element that saves us from the expected and helps to produce ideas that are surprises as well as solutions. Ideas are not precious, they are everywhere, which suggests that the extraordinary process which we think of as creativity, really does not necessarily depend on genius, serendipity, epiphany, or whatever. Hard work and determination are in the end the major ingredient. My background has taught me that sculpture is not a commodity or a product. I am not designing for anyone but myself. All of the motivation is intrinsic, which is clearly conducive to creativity. Lucky for me, there was no extrinsic motivation, as my early work did not sell, anyway. If you have read anything on the subject of intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation, you know that being offered a reward clobbers creativity. I try to make work that speaks to the authentic me, rather than to what is currently popular in the art world, or what might be more saleable. I certainly don’t want my work to be thought of as pretty, beautiful or nice. In fact, there should be a dark side, a questioning side, and most of all, the work must make the viewer think. I question everything I do, I make no assumptions, I take nothing for granted, and I fully embrace ambiguity. Nothing good is easy, and that is because we see so little at first glance. It’s only by really thinking about something that we are able to move ourselves into perceptions that we never knew we were capable of. Think until you can think no more. Think until the necessary thoughts intersect.
Working memory is an essential tool of the imagination. Sometimes, all we need to do is to pay attention, to think until the necessary thoughts intercede. The process is slow but the answer or insight will gradually reveal itself. As Nietzsche observed in his 1878 book, Human, All-Too-Human, “Artists have vested interest in our believing in the flash of revelation, the so-called inspiration…shining down from heaven as a ray of grace. In reality, the imagination of the good artist or thinker produces continuously good, mediocre or bad things, but his judgment, trained and sharpened to a fine point, rejects, selects, connects… All great artists and thinkers are great workers, tireless not only in inventing, but also, in rejecting, sifting, transforming, ordering.” 1 The random event of my discovering art gave my life purpose. I’m blessed to have the three things that make work meaningful and satisfying: autonomy, complexity and a connection between effort and reward. It’s not about how much money we make; it’s about whether the work fulfills us. I believe the best way to move forward is to study your thought process and be willing to take a leap of faith. An excerpt from Wendell Castle’s speech entitled “A Leap of Faith” at The Furniture Society’s FS16 CRAFT/FACTURING conference in Philadelphia, PA on June 24th 2016.
1
Frederich Nietzsche (1844-1900), Human, All-Too-Human, 1878.
F R E E F O R M S + B LO C K S
Second City, 2017 Stained ash 24.5 x 72 x 45 inches 62 x 183 x 114 cm Page 19
Hornet’s Nest, 2016 Stained ash 58 x 70 x 48 inches 147.3 x 177.8 x 121.9 cm Page 21
Big Easy, 2017 Stained ash 29 x 75 x 42.5 inches 74 x 190.5 x 108 cm Page 23
Gotham, 2016 Stained ash 36 x 77 x 52 inches 91.4 x 195.6 x 132.1 cm Page 25
Big Apple, 2017 Stained ash 27 x 62 x 57 inches 69 x 157.5 x 145 cm Page 27
Big D, 2016 Stained ash 32 x 70 x 48 inches 81.3 x 177.8 x 121.9 cm Page 26
Within, 2016 Stained ash 31 x 54 x 34 inches 78.7 x 137.2 x 86.4 cm Page 29
Awakening, 2017 Stained ash 35 x 92 x 32.5 inches 89 x 234 x 82.5 cm Page 31
Dante’s Heaven, 2015 Bronze Two parts: 89 x 75.5 x 52.75 inches 226 x 192 x 134 cm 87.75 x 58.25 x 41.75 inches 223 x 148 x 106 cm Edition of 8 Page 35
Reaching for the Moon, 2016 Stained ash 32.5 x 87 x 39 inches 82.6 x 221 x 99.1 cm Page 37
I Give it All, 2016 Stained ash 29.5 x 138.5 x 64.25 inches 74.9 x 351.8 x 163.2 cm Page 39
Motown, 2016 Stained ash 34.25 x 65 x 40 inches 87 x 165.1 x 101.6 cm Page 41
Happiness, 2015 Stained ash 33.5 x 67 x 47 inches 85.1 x 170.2 x 119.4 cm Page 43
Lasting Passion, 2016 Stained ash 32.25 x 82.25 x 41.25 inches 81.9 x 208.9 x 104.8 cm Page 45
Flash Point, 2016 Stained ash 36 x 62 x 50 inches 91.4 x 157.5 x 127 cm Page 47
Fearless, 2016 Stained ash 29.5 x 44.75 x 45.125 inches 74.9 x 113.7 x 114.6 cm Page 49
Arm in Arm, 2015 Bronze 67.75 x 94.5 x 67 inches 172 x 240 x 170 cm Edition of 8 Page 51
LIST OF WORKS
Second City, 2017 Stained ash 24.5 x 72 x 45 inches 62 x 183 x 114 cm
Hornet’s Nest, 2016 Stained ash 58 x 70 x 48 inches 147.3 x 177.8 x 121.9 cm
Big Easy, 2017 Stained ash 29 x 75 x 42.5 inches 74 x 190.5 x 108 cm
Page 19
Page 21
Page 23
Gotham, 2016 Stained ash 36 x 77 x 52 inches 91.4 x 195.6 x 132.1 cm
Big Apple, 2017 Stained ash 27 x 62 x 57 inches 69 x 157.5 x 145 cm
Big D, 2016 Stained ash 32 x 70 x 48 inches 81.3 x 177.8 x 121.9 cm
Page 25
Page 27
Page 28
Within, 2016 Stained ash 31 x 54 x 34 inches 78.7 x 137.2 x 86.4 cm
Awakening, 2017 Stained Ash 35 x 92 x 32.5 inches 89 x 234 x 82.5 cm
Page 29
Page 31
Dante’s Heaven, 2015 Bronze Two parts: 89 x 75.5 x 52.75 inches 226 x 192 x 134 cm 87.75 x 58.25 x 41.75 inches 223 x 148 x 106 cm Edition of 8 Page 35
Reaching for the Moon, 2016 Stained ash 32.5 x 87 x 39 inches 82.6 x 221 x 99.1 cm
I Give it All, 2016 Stained ash 29.5 x 138.5 x 64.25 inches 74.9 x 351.8 x 163.2 cm
Motown, 2016 Stained ash 34.25 x 65 x 40 inches 87 x 165.1 x 101.6 cm
Page 37
Page 39
Page 41
Happiness, 2015 Stained ash 33.5 x 67 x 47 inches 85.1 x 170.2 x 119.4 cm
Lasting Passion, 2016 Stained ash 32.25 x 82.25 x 41.25 inches 81.9 x 208.9 x 104.8 cm
Flash Point, 2016 Stained ash 36 x 62 x 50 inches 91.4 x 157.5 x 127 cm
Page 43
Page 45
Page 47
Fearless 2016 Stained ash 29.5 x 44.75 x 45.125 inches 74.9 x 113.7 x 114.6 cm
Arm in Arm, 2015 Bronze 67.75 x 94.5 x 67 inches 172 x 240 x 170 cm Edition of 8
Page 49 Page 51
WENDELL CASTLE Present
Lives and works in New York, NY
1961
University of Kansas, Sculpture MFA
1958
University of Kansas, Industrial Design BFA
1932
Born, Emporia, KS
Select Solo Exhibitions 2017
Wendell Castle: Remastered, Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, NY
Wendell Castle: Embracing Upheaval, Friedman Benda, New York, NY
2016
Wendell Castle Imagined: A Reveleation of Creative Process,
Rochester Institute of Technology University Gallery, Rochester, NY
2015
Wendell Castle Remasterd, The Museum of Arts and Design, New York, NY
Gathering Momentum, Friedman Benda, New York, NY
2014
Wendell Castle: Unflinching Faith, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, Oshkosh, WI
2014-2013
Wendell Castle: Leap of Faith, Carpenter’s Workshop Gallery, London, UK
Wendell Castle: Wandering Forms, Works from 1959 – 1979,
Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, GA
2013-2012
Wendell Castle: A New Environment, Friedman Benda, New York, NY
Wendell Castle: Volumes and Voids, Barry Friedman, New York, NY
Wendell Castle: Wandering Forms – Works from 1959-79, The Aldrich Museum, Ridgefield, CT
Wendell Castle: Forms within Forms, Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft, Louisville, KY
2012-2011
Wendell Castle: Best Leg Forward, Carpenter’s Workshop Gallery, London, UK
2011
Wendell Castle in the 21st Century, Belger Arts Center, Kansas City, MO
2010
Wendell Castle. Rockin’, Barry Friedman, Ltd. New York, NY
2008
Wendell Castle. New Work, Barry Friedman, Ltd. New York, NY
Wendell Castle: About Time, Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS
Wendell Castle, Carpenter’s Workshop Gallery, London, UK
2006-2004
Wendell Castle in Rochester, Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, NY
2005
Wendell Castle: What Pluck!, Castellani Art Museum, Niagara, NY
2004
Wendell Castle: Auto Plastic, R 20th Century, New York, NY
2003
Wendell Castle: Seeing in the Dark, Wexler Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2001
Wendell Castle, Bausch & Lomb, Rochester, NY
2000
Furniture by Wendell Castle, Kendall College of Art & Design, Grand Rapids, MI
1996
One Man Exhibit, Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, GA
1995
Works by Wendell Castle, Atlantic Center for the Arts, New Smyrna Beach, FL
Art Furniture by Wendell Castle, Orlando Museum of Art, Orlando, FL
One-Man Exhibit, Chang Gallery, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS
Wendell Castle: Cabinets 1985 – 1995, A Retrospective Exhibition, Peter Joseph Gallery, New York, NY
1994
Ambiguous Objecthood: New Furniture and Drawings by Wendell Castle, Art Complex Museum, Duxbury,
MA
Wendell Castle: Coming to Grips, Morgan Gallery, Kansas City, MO
New Work by Wendell Castle, Carleton Art Gallery, Carleton College, Northfield, MN
1993
Wendell Castle: Environmental Works, Peter Joseph Gallery, New York, NY
Wendell Castle: Select Early Works (1971-75), Franklin Parrasch Gallery, New York, NY
1991
Angel Chairs: New Work by Wendell Castle, Peter Joseph Gallery, New York, NY
1991-1989
Furniture of Wendell Castle, Traveling retrospective exhibit: Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI; American
Craft Museum, New York, NY; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA; Delaware Art Museum,
Wilmington, DE; Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, NY
1989
Wendell Castle: New Work, Snyderman Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
1988
Wendell Castle: A Decade 1977-1987, Alexander Milliken Gallery, New York, NY
1986
Time and Defiance of Gravity: Recent Works by Wendell Castle, Mead Art Museum, Amherst College,
Amherst, MA
Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, NY
Wendell Castle, Works in Plastic 1968-1970, 20th Century Gallery, Toronto, Canada
Wendell Castle, Sculpture? Furniture? The Vanishing Line, Fendrick Gallery, Washington, D.C.
1986-1985
Masterpieces of Time, The Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.
1985
Taft Museum, Cincinnati, OH
1980
Furniture As Art II, Fendrick Gallery, Washington, D.C.
1969
The Furniture of Wendell Castle, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS
State University of New York, Cortland, NY
1966-1965
Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, NY
1962
Inaugural Show, Hopkins Center, Dartmouth College, Dartmouth, NH
Louisville Art Association, Louisville, KY
Ithaca College Museum of Art, Ithaca, NY
Scudder Gallery, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH
Select Group Exhibitions 2015
NYC Makers, The Museum of Arts and Design, New York, NY
2013-2012
Unicorn Family, The University of Rochester, Rochester Centennial Sculpture Park, Rochester, NY
Against the Grain: Wood in Contemporary Art, Craft, and Design, Mint Museum, Charlotte, NC; Museum of
Arts and Design, New York, NY; Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art, Fort Lauderdale, FL
2012-2011
Crafting Modernism: Midcentury American Art and Design, Museum of Art and Design, New York, NY
The Abstract Forms of Pablo Picasso and Wendell Castle, Wexler Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2010
The Edge of Art: New York State Artists Series, Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY
Sotheby’s at Sudeley Castle: A Selling Exhibition, Cheltenham, UK
2009-2007
Craft in America: Expanding Traditions, Craft in America, Los Angeles, CA
2008
New Work by Wendell Castle: Works on Paper by Chuck Close, Wexler Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2007
Shy Boy, She Devil, and Isis: The Art of Conceptual Craft, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
Not Furniture: XXI Design, Hedge Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2006
Pop Art and Its Affinities, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA
2005
Recent Acquisitions, Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS
Good Heart, Gerald Peters Gallery, Sante Fe, NM
2005-2004
Black & White, Galerie von Bartha, Basel, Switzerland
2004
Outrageous Home, The Hunterdon Museum of Art, Clinton, NJ
The White House Collection of American Crafts, Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, Atlanta, GA
Summer Group Show, Marlborough Gallery, New York, NY
Right at Home: American Studio Furniture, Renwick Gallery, Washington, D.C.
The Perfect Collection: A Shared Vision of Contemporary Craft, The Fuller Museum, Brockton, MA
2003
Corporal Identity-Body Language, Museum of Arts & Design, New York, NY
The Maker’s Hand: American Studio Furniture, 1940-1990. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
Kanazawa World Craft Forum 2003, Kanazawa, Japan
Triennial 9 Form & Contents: Corporal Identity-Body Language, Museum Für Angewandte Kunst, Frankfurt,
Germany
Teasing the Eye: Crafted Illusions, The Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington,
D.C.
Significant Objects from the Modern Design Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
2002
Deceptions and Illusions: Five Centuries of Trompe L’Oeil Painting, The National Gallery of Art,
Washington, D.C.
Embellished with Gold, Decorative Arts Museum, Little Rock, AK
2001
Objects for Use: Handmade by Design, American Craft Museum, New York, NY
Contemporary Craft in the Museum of Fine Arts, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Houston, TX
1999
Recent Acquisitions, Decorative Arts, Traveling exhibition: Musée des Art Décoratifs, Paris, France; Die
Neue Sammlung, Munich, Germany; J.B. Speed Museum, Louisville, KY; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts,
Richmond, VA; Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, OH; Canadian Museum of Civilization, Quebec, Canada;
Montreal Museum of Decorative Arts, Montreal, Canada
1999-1995
The White House Collection of American Crafts, Traveling exhibition: Mint Museum, Charlotte, NC;
Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, DE; Tampa Museum of Art, Tampa, FL; Colby College Museum of
Art, Waterville, ME; Art Museum of Western Virginia, Roanoke, VA; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los
Angeles, CA; American Craft Museum, New York, NY; Rochester Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, NY; The
Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.
The Handmade: shifting paradigms, Singapore Art Museum, Singapore, Japan
Recent Acquisitions of Furniture, The Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington,
D.C.
1997
Renwick at 25, Renwick Gallery, Washington, D.C.
Celebrating American Craft, The Danish Museum of Decorative Art, Copenhagen, Denmark
Designed for Delight, Alternative aspects of twentieth-century decorative arts, Traveling Exhibition:
Canadian Museum of Civilization, Hull, Canada; Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, OH; Montreal Museum
of Decorative Arts, Montreal, Canada; Musee des Arts Decoratifs, Paris, France; Muzeum Narodowe w
Krakowie, Krakow, Poland; Die Neue Sammlung, Munich, Germany; J.B. Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY;
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA
1997-1996
Four Decades of Discovery: The 40th Anniversary of the American Craft Museum, American Craft
Museum, New York, NY
1996
New Furniture: Beyond Form and Function, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Ithaca, NY
Wendell Castle and Nancy Jurs: A Marriage of Life and Art, Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts,
Wilmington, DE
1996-1995
Breaking Barriers: Recent American Craft, Traveling exhibition: American Craft Museum, New York, NY;
Museum of Art, Albany, GA; Madison Art Center, Madison, WI; Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR
1995
Art for Everyday, Wharton Esherick Museum, Paoli, PA
Please Be Seated: Masters of the Art of Seating, The Henry Morrison Flagler Museum, Palm Beach, FL
1994
The Object of Pop, Franklin Parrasch Gallery, New York, NY
1993
Furniture Fantasy, Susquehanna Art Museum, Harrisburg, PA
1993-1991
Design 1935-1965: What Modern Was, Traveling exhibition: Canadian Museum of Civilization, Quebec,
Canada; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal, Canada; Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD;
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas, City, MO; Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, OH; Los Angeles County
Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA
1992
Craft Today: USA, The Gulbenkian, Lisbon, Portugal
1992-1989
Crafted Today USA, Traveling exhibition: The Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum,
Washington D.C.; Sala Sant Jaume de la Fundacio La Caixa, Barcelona, Spain; The Grassi Museum, Leipzig,
Germany; Slovak National Gallery, Bratislava, Slovakia; Eommex Cultural Center-Zapperion, Athens, Greece;
American Haus, Berlin, Germany; St. Peter’s Abbey, Ghent, Belgium; The Oslo Museum of Applied
Art, Oslo, Norway; Ataturk Cultural Center, Ankara, Turkey; Museum of Applied Arts, Moscow, Russia;
Musée des Art Décoratifs, Lausanne, Switzerland; Zacheta Gallery, Warsaw, Poland; Museum Für
Kunsthandwerk, Frankfurt, Germany; Taidetollisuusmustoi, Helsinki, Finland; Musée des Art Décoratifs,
Paris, France
1991
1991 Kanazawa Gran-Prix Arts & Crafts Competition, Kanazawa Culture Hall Gallery, Kanazawa, Japan
Masterworks, Peter Joseph Gallery, New York, NY
1991-1987
The Eloquent Object: the Evolution of American Art in Craft Media since 1945, Traveling exhibition: Museum
of Modern Art, Tokyo, Japan; Virginia Museum of Fine Art, Richmond, VA; Orlando Museum of Art, Orlando,
FL; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; The Oakland Museum, Oakland, CA
1989
Artful Objects: Recent American Crafts, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Fort Wayne, IN
1988
Clockwork! List Visual Arts Center, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, MA
1988: The World of Art, Today, Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI
1988-1986
Craft Today: Poetry of the Physical, Traveling exhibition: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA;
J.B. Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY; Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI; The Denver Art Museum;
American Craft Museum, Denver, CO
1987
New Work: Wendell Castle, Garry Knox Bennet, Fred Baier, Alexander Milliken Gallery, New York, NY
A Gallery, Palm Desert, CA
1987-1985
Material Evidence, New Color Techniques in Handmade Furniture, The Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian
American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.
1985
High Styles: Twentieth-Century American Design, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
1983
Ornamentalism: The New Decorativeness in Architecture and Design, Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, NY
1980
Sitting in Style, The Society of Arts and Crafts, Boston, MA
The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
1980-1979
New Handmade Furniture, Museum of Contemporary Crafts, New York, NY
1979
Paley/Castle, Wildenhain, Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, NY
1977
American Crafts 1977/ The Philadelphia Craft Show, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA
Drawing Show, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY
1976
American Crafts ‘76, an Aesthetic View, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL
1976-1975
Craft Multiplies, The Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.
1974-1973
Innovations: Contemporary Home Environs, La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, La Jolla, CA
1972
Woodenworks: Furniture Objects by Five Contemporary Craftsmen, The Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian
American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.
Minnesota Museum of Art, St. Paul, MN
1972-1969
Objects USA: The Johnson Collection of Contemporary Crafts, Traveling exhibition: Smithsonian American
Art Museum, Washington D.C.; University of Rochester, Rochester, NY; Cranbrook Academy of Art,
Bloomfield Hills, MI; Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinatti, OH; St. Paul Art Center, Saint Paul, MN; Seattle Art
Museum, Seattle, WA; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA
1970
Attitudes, The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY
Contemplation Environments, Museum of Contemporary Crafts, New York, NY
1966
Wendell Castle, Wharton Esherick, Sam Maloof, Marcello Grassman, Renaissance Society, University of
Chicago, Chicago, IL
Fantasy Furniture, Museum of Contemporary Crafts, New York, NY
Internationals Kunsthandwerk, 1966, Stuttgart, Germany
1964
United States of America Section at the 13th Triennale, Milan, Italy
The American Craftsman, Museum of Contemporary Crafts, New York, NY
1962
1962 Young Americans, Museum of Contemporary Crafts, New York, NY
Select Museum and Public Collections
Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, MA
Monroe County-Greater Rochester International Airport,
American Express, New York, NY
Rochester, NY
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Museum of Art, St. Louis, MO
Atlanta High Museum, Atlanta, GA
Museum of Art and Design, New York, NY
Bausch & Lomb, Rochester, NY
Museum of Decorative Arts, Montreal, Canada
Belger Arts Center, Kansas City, MO
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA
Museum of Modern Art, Design Collection, New York, NY
Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, OH
Nations Bank, Atlanta, GA
Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, New York, NY
Nelson Atkins Museum, Kansas City, MO
Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, NH
Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseet, Oslo, Norway
Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, DE
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA
Design Museum Ghent, Ghent, Belgium
Racine Art Museum, Racine, WI
Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI
Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY
DuPont Center, Orlando, FL
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.
Forbes Company, New York, NY
Speed Museum of Art, Louisville, KY
Gannett Corporation, Washington D.C.
Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence, KS
Gilman Foundation, New York, NY
Steinway Company, Long Island City, NY
Hunter Museum of Art, Chattanooga, TN
Sydney Bestoff, New Orleans, LA
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA
Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, OH
Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester, UK
The University of Rochester, Rochester Centennial Sculpture
Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, NY
Park, Rochester, NY
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK
Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI
White House Collection of American Crafts, Washington D.C.
Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, NC
Wichita Art Museum, Wichita, KS
Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, MN
Wolfsonian Foundation, Miami Beach, FL
WENDELL
CASTLE
E M B R AC I N G U P H E AVA L
Design: Olivia Swider Photography: Steve Bensity, Daniel Kukla, Adrien Millot, and Matthew Wittmeyer Printing: Puritan Press
Published by Friedman Benda 515 West 26th Street New York, NY 10001 Tel. + 1 212 239 8700 www.friedmanbenda.com Content copyright of Friedman Benda and the artist. Printed on the occasion of the exhibition Embracing Upheaval, June 22 - August 11, 2017.
Printed in a limited edition of 250
Wendell Castle working in his studio in Scottsville, New York, 2015