WENDELL CASTLE A NEW VOCABULARY
FRIEDMAN BENDA 515 WEST 26TH STREET NEW YORK NY 10001
Wendell Castle: A New Vocabulary Glenn Adamson Wendell Castle (1932-2018) was an iconic and enduring creative force. Throughout his career, he invented new vocabularies of form, as well as the means to realize them. That he did so in the seemingly restrictive context of furniture design makes his achievement all the more remarkable. He was able to rethink functional objects—tables, chairs, cabinets—into wholly unprecedented gestural compositions. In all these respects, Castle was entirely singular. At the same time, he was impressionable, absorbing ideas from other sculpture, as well as historic decorative arts, technical engineering, film and philosophy. The selection of works seen here bookend Castle’s 60-year career. From the late 1950s into the 1960s, he pivoted from non-functional sculpture to expressive furniture forms. He also invented new techniques that would allow him to compose volumes, free in space—totally departing from precedent. Castle exploited these methods to rethink what furniture could be. Many years later, in the 21st century, he circled back to this early idiom. In these pieces—often imposing in scale—he applied lessons learned over a lifetime of invention, while expanding his capabilities through new technology. Each establishes its own sense of space and rhythm, seeming almost to move, even dance. Some of these compositions are staccato, with strong internal divisions; others undulate across the floor in a continuous serpentine motion. All of them occupy space with total confidence. Already in his seventies, Castle could certainly have rested on his laurels. Instead, he pushed ahead more ambitiously than ever, unafraid to explore new territory, even when this meant putting aside solutions that had long served him. This final extraordinary burst of imagination reaffirmed Castle as one of America’s most important designers, bringing his long artistic journey to a triumphant conclusion.
Wendell Castle in his studio, Scottsville, NY, 2015
Wendell Castle in his studio, Scottsville, NY, 1969
Walnut Sculpture, 1958-1959 One of Castle’s earliest preserved works, this sculpture was made at the University of Kansas, shortly after he completed his studies in industrial design and began pursuing sculpture. Castle had not studied traditional joinery, but was interested to work in wood, and he identified a ready supply of high-quality walnut timber in a local gun manufactory. He realized that he could use their rejected rifle stocks, free for the taking, as construction components. By joining them together at varied angles and carving them along their full lengths, he was able to create complex, cage-like forms. The defined ridge lines that course round the sculpture, giving it the feeling of a three-dimensional drawing, would remain a distinctive feature of Castle’s work for years to come. So too would inventive construction techniques which permitted him to compose freely in space.
Walnut Sculpture, 1958-1959 Walnut and brass pins 52 x 36 x 34.5 inches 132.1 x 91.4 x 87.6 cm Unique
Installation view: Wendell Castle Remastered, Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, NY, 2017 Installation view: Wendell Castle Remastered, Museum of Arts and Design, New York, NY, 2015-2016
Chaise Rocker, 1962 Castle often remarked that he was glad never to have been trained in conventional joinery techniques, as it freed him to approach everything in new ways. This rocker is a perfect example from the early part of his career. On each side of the chair, two extended slow curves meet in a vertex underneath the midpoint of the seat. A further angled element and a single front stretcher provide stability and structure. The design has a beautiful simplicity yet is unlike any rocking chair previously conceived. It is also noteworthy as Castle’s earliest rocker, a format that he would return to repeatedly over his career.
Chaise Rocker, 1962 Oak and leather 34.25 x 28.75 x 60 inches 87 x 73 x 152.4 cm Unique
Stool, 1963 & 1964 An early experimental form, these stools present the remarkable opportunity to see Castle’s signature technique—stack lamination—literally emerging as a possibility. The process involves stacking up precut boards, gluing them, and then carving them into a freeform shape. This is how Castle realized the upper volume of these upright stools, which perch on four slender, tendril-like legs. These works are also important as one of his first extant explorations of organicism, which he embraced both as a design principle and an iconography.
Stool, 1963 Cherry 25.5 x 20 x 20 inches 64.8 x 50.8 x 50.8 cm Unique
Stool, 1964 Walnut and rosewood 22.5 x 16 x 15.5 inches 57.2 x 40.6 x 39.4 cm Unique
Music Stand, 1964 Castle’s music stands are in a league all their own, a pinnacle of his early career. They are a fascinating demonstration of his ability to find infinite variety within an apparently simple form. Though only comprising three main elements—base, support, and rack— each of his stands has a particular stance and character. In this very early example, Castle juxtaposes the triangularity of the base and rectilinearity of the rack, connecting them with a freely carved, calligraphic shaft. This combination of hard and soft forms is quite unlike other American furniture being made at the time, which was broadly under the gentle sway of Scandinavian imports. Even in the context of a beautifully turned and functional form, Castle announced his intention to disrupt expectation.
Music Stand, 1964 Walnut and rosewood 49 x 26 x 22 inches 124.5 x 66 x 55.9 cm Unique
Desk, 1964 This small desk is an early but fully-resolved example of Castle’s stack lamination technique, which allowed him to depart from the convention of multiple legs, and instead make integral shapes evocative of tree trunks. It is also a very early example of his interest in powerfully articulated, monolithic forms. The inclusion of a single sliding drawer accentuates this approach by admitting access to the interior of the volume.
Desk, 1964 Walnut 28.25 x 19.25 x 18.75 inches 71.8 x 48.9 x 47.6 cm Unique
In God We Trust, 1964 The principle of the cantilever, familiar from Marcel Breuer’s designs in tubular steel, is rendered in a wholly original way in this boldly conceived sling chair. It is a breathtaking piece of construction, with sweeping arms that reach upwards to a triangular apex, echoed by the inward curve of the runners on the floor. Strength and structure are expressed with prominent joinery right up front. The inscription IN GOD WE TRUST, neatly carved into the front stretcher, is a unique feature in Castle’s work. This could be read as an allusion to ecclesiastical design (a common source of commissions for craftspeople in the 1960s), but it also clearly refers to US currency—and in that sense has a connection to contemporaneous Pop Art. Recently arrived in upstate New York to teach at the Rochester Institute of Technology, Castle entered this chair into the region’s Finger Lakes Exhibition and won first prize.
In God We Trust, 1964 Oak and leather 42.5 x 28 x 46 inches 108 x 71.1 x 116.8 cm Unique
Dictionary Stand, 1968 This is a unique variant on one of Castle’s best-known designs, a music stand for performance. In place of the usual vertical slats for the score, there is instead a gently sloped horizontal book rest. One can imagine the object standing in the corner of a room, like a poised attendant. The composition is extraordinarily elegant: tautly arched like a young sapling or long-necked swan, its graceful lines spring up energetically from three contact points on the floor, then swell slightly to receive the weight of the top. The lip of the book rest is a typically sensitive piece of carving on Castle’s part, an example of the way he exploited functional necessity as an opportunity for aesthetic accomplishment.
Dictionary Stand, 1968 Walnut 40.25 x 26 x 19 inches 102.2 x 66 x 48.3 cm Edition of 12
Installation view: Handcrafted Furniture by Wendell Castle—New York Debut, Lee Nordness Gallery, Inc., New York, NY, 1968
Table, 1968 This table is from a body of work Castle made in the late 1960s, marking one extreme of his exploration of furniture as sculpture. Totally devoid of the usual stylistic and utilitarian trappings of decorative art, they are expressed as pure gesture. The serpentine forms typical of these works sometimes are elements within multipart compositions, but also appear—as here—as self-standing compositions. The table tunnels upward from the floor, banks one hard turn and then another, finally resolving in a functional ellipseshaped table top. In other related works, he used the wall as a prop; here, It is hard to believe the table even stays upright, but it is quite stable thanks to Castle’s clever use of counterbalanced masses.
Table, 1968 Oak 17 x 26 x 16 inches 43.2 x 66 x 40.6 cm Unique
Curving Table No. 8, ca. 1969 This fiberglass variant on Castle’s monolithic table forms is more slender than its carved wood precedents, but shares the same radical conception of what a piece of furniture can be. The unusual material—he was one of few American designers working in fiberglass at the time—feels appropriate to the pneumatic curvature of the form. A gel coat masks the rough surface imparted by the experimental casting process, and the surface is further sealed by a layer of automotive paint, resulting in a high-gloss Pop (even futuristic) aesthetic. Unlike his well-known Molar and Castle chairs in fiberglass, this piece was a one-off sculptural investigation, never intended for mass production.
Curving Table No. 8, ca. 1969 Gel-coated fiberglass, wood, and automobile paint 27.5 x 32.5 x 15.5 inches 69.9 x 82.6 x 39.4 cm
Environment for Contemplation, 1970 Arguably the most important work of Wendell Castle’s early career, this inhabitable sculpture was created for an exhibition called “Contemplation Environments,” held at the Museum of Contemporary Crafts in 1970. The show was otherwise oriented toward new technology and installation art; of the sixteen artists included, only Castle created a discrete object. He approached it with complete artistic license, essentially providing a sculpture, albeit one that visitors could crawl into. Made using his stack lamination technique, the work is monumental yet freeform, one of the most extreme instances of his inclinations toward biomorphism. One side opens up via an eccentrically-shaped door, revealing a womb-like interior upholstered with black shag carpet. Up top, flanking an orifice-like skylight, are two domes (abbreviated from a single curved, handle-like form that Castle had initially envisioned). These are covered in black flocking, as is the cloud-like fiberglass tail, which extends from one end of the pod; this component was made using molds from the plastic lighting that he was experimenting with at the time. Depending on one’s point of view, the Environment for Contemplation could come off as a spiritual vehicle to a higher plane, or a humorous send-up of that very idea (sitting down inside activates a pressure plate, which triggers the light: illumination in progress). It is both cartoonish and profound, a thought bubble and a hand-crafted monument. In its contradictions, it seems to encapsulate countercultural America at the dawn of the 1970s. Today, it stands as the ultimate demonstration of Castle’s capacious imagination, a creative mind without boundaries.
Environment for Contemplation, 1970 Oak, flock-covered fiberglass, flock-covered wood and fabric 49.75 x 137.75 x 65.25 inches 126.4 x 349.9 x 165.7 cm Unique
Wendell Castle with Environment for Contemplation, Scottsville, NY, 1970
Mirrors, 1972 The restlessly imaginative Castle only rarely made the same object twice. An exception is seen in these two small mirrors. Though perfectly matched to one another, each is wonderfully wayward in its lines, with an asymmetrical cloudlike silhouette and propulsive carving in depth—an oscillating, rhythmic approach also seen in his fiberglass lamps of this period. The mirrors are pure and condensed specimens of the organic sensibility he had perfected by this point in his career.
Mirrors, 1972 Oak and mirrored glass Each: 16.25 x 16 x 5 inches 41.3 x 40.6 x 12.7 cm
Zephyr Chairs, 1979 The late 1970s saw Castle investigating a wide range of stylistic idioms in parallel, among them a series of trompe l’oeil works and historicist neoclassical designs, and continuing explorations of stack laminated form. The Zephyr Chairs fall into none of these broad categories, instead marking a continuity of interest from his earliest joined furniture and anticipating later ideas. Cantilevered on minimally designed joinery, like In God We Trust (1964), the design is more upright and perhaps more conventional. It is distinguished however by the unusual continuous curve to the chair’s rear, which echoes the scooped-out back above. The chairs seem to lean back ever so slightly, as if in forward motion captured in freeze-frame. This streamlining of the form is an idea he would explore much more explicitly in his later rocking chairs. While several versions of the Zephyr Chair exist, each is unique due to the hand-sculpting of the back and seat.
Zephyr Chairs, 1979 Mahogany Each: 28.5 x 25 x 23 inches 72.4 x 63.5 x 58.4 cm
Harmonious Opportunities, 1990 This impressively scaled settee belongs to Castle’s Angel Chair series, which feature upswept wings—an audacious sculptural idea that is juxtaposed to the flatter geometry of the seat, which penetrates the huge carved mass. The composition enfolds the sitter like a great cloak. There is also a striking study in contrasts between the dramatically figured veneer seat and the ebonized mahogany of the enclosing form. The Angel Chair series marked the culmination of a pictorial trajectory in his work, quite different from the more abstract approach he took in the early and late stages of his career. In this sense, it is something of an outlier in the present exhibition. It has been included to stand for his work of the 1980s and ‘90s, when he restlessly explored a range of idioms, often emphasizing narrative content. These mid-career works often have a dramatic quality—to some extent in dialogue with contemporaneous postmodernism—like stage props for a theater of the imagination.
Harmonious Opportunities, 1990 Mahogany and avodire veneer 47 x 60 x 41 inches 119.4 x 152.4 x 104.1 cm Unique
Installation view: Angel Chairs: New Works by Wendell Castle, Peter Joseph Gallery, New York, NY, 1991
Wendell Castle in his studio, Scottsville, NY, 2018
Ghost Rider, 2010 The renaissance that marked Castle’s late career began with a series of rockers, of which this is an outstanding example. Executed entirely in solid bubinga, the only chair from the series made in a precious wood. Its long, rounded contours immediately call to mind a classic sports car; Castle was specifically inspired by the famous photos of Jacques Henri Lartigue, which show automobiles racing at high speed so they appear to stretch. The rocker is built along those extended lines, with the seat perched at the midpoint of an enormous kinetic structure. When seated, the user leans back at a rakish angle, increasing the sense of forward motion. In retrospect, the rocker seems a powerful metaphor for an always prolific designer who was shifting his energies into an even higher gear.
Ghost Rider, 2010 Bubinga 29.25 x 32 x 76.5 inches 74.3 x 81.3 x 194.3 cm Unique
Wide Awake, 2011 Though Castle has employed his signature technique of stack lamination for decades, it is quite rare for him to make the stacking itself into a design feature. That is the case with this seat in leopardwood, a tropical timber harvested mainly in Brazil, which has a distinctive flecked figure. Through variations in orientation and the selection of the wood itself, Castle creates a strong banded effect that contrasts with the object’s plump, round contours. A single passthrough affords a view into the seat’s interior. Thanks to the simplicity of the composition, the softly modulated joint between its two volumes—reminiscent of the swiveled neck of a Modigliani—has particular prominence.
Wide Awake, 2011 Leopardwood 21 x 16 x 12 inches 53.3 x 40.6 x 30.5 cm Edition of 8
Through the Dark Table, 2011 One of Castle’s most effective design techniques is the crop. Like a great photographer, he knew how to cut off a composition in such a way as to build its internal energies. This sharply defined table is a terrific example. Its single bend, suggestive of a horse’s knee or the knuckle of a finger, derives its compression from the flat planes above and below. The title, in this case more evocative than narrowly descriptive, further emphasizes this sense of passage from one moment to another. Finally, the table renews investigations that Castle undertook in the late 1960s, in which monolithic cylindrical forms were twisted into various forms of tables and seats.
Through the Dark Table, 2011 Rosewood, walnut 17.5 x 15 x 12.5 inches 44.5 x 38 x 32 cm Edition of 8
Blowin’ in the Wind, 2013 The title of this work does allude to a Bob Dylan song, but it is also aptly descriptive of the composition, which suggests smoothly eroded rocks on a windswept coastline. One can almost feel the gust traveling down the boldly cantilevered table top and across its pod-like support structure, which seems to topple backward. This powerful horizontal motion is offset by the muscular concentration of the work’s crux, where the top anchors into a primary post.
Blowin’ in The Wind, 2013 Ash 37.375 x 78 x 34 inches 94.9 x 198.1 x 86.4 cm Unique
Happiness, 2015 Toward the end of his career, working at large scale and with total confidence, Castle realized objects like this elaborate seating sculpture, simply entitled Happiness. It has all the visual incident of a natural phenomenon encountered in the wild: two large hollow seats like great boulders, held aloft on a set of intersecting, tree-like, conical forms—one of which seems to have detached itself, and trails behind. Made in a light-colored ash, the whole surface is stained a deep ebony color, the supports further enlivened with a chiseled texture while the seats are left smooth, giving the piece a contrast in reflectivity.
Happiness, 2015 Ash 33.5 x 67 x 47 inches 85.1 x 170.2 x 119.4 cm Unique
Illusion-Reality-Truth, 2015 One of the most ambitious aspects of Castle’s later work is his in-depth exploration of bronze. While not new to his practice, the scale and perfection of his castings now attained new heights. The casting is based on a small-scale handmade model which was then enlarged to a hard foam “plug,” which in turn was used to make a mold. The finishing of both the plug and final bronze involved intense workmanship, both in terms of surface texture and added color through the application of patina. The tripartite title of this work, poetically embodied in the three seats and three uprights of the object, implies an interdependent relationship between the imagined, the tangible, and the purely conceptual—a philosophy that Castle exemplified throughout his career.
Illusion-Reality-Truth, 2015 Bronze 86.75 x 113 x 74.75 inches 220 x 287 x 190 cm Edition of 8
Installation view: Wendell Castle: Shifting Vocabularies, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 2018-2019
A New Seeing, 2015 This capacious three-seat settee revisits a typology that Castle made his own in the 1960s, invested with a new disjunctive energy. Like all of his late work, it is based on a small hand-carved model. After shaping a series of organic volumes, Castle cut through them at various angles and then rejoined them, achieving a strong contrast between gentle curvature and abruptly vectored smash-joints—a feature of his “Misfit” series, of which this is the only example in cast bronze, lending it a stately monumentality. A New Seeing also features an understructure comprised of individual ovoid forms, which visually seem to topple arbitrarily—like stones on a beach, perhaps—while providing exactly the right support.
A New Seeing, 2015 Bronze 37 x 91.75 x 45.25 inches 94 x 233 x 115 cm Edition of 8
Runaway, 2015 Already in the 1960s Castle was interested in multifunctional furniture, occasionally involving lighting elements (as with his monumental Library Sculpture, 1965, now in the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester). As with other aspects of his early work, he returned to this idea with tremendous creative verve. In Runaway, the four main elements of base, upright pillar, seat, and lamp seem to collide with force—or perhaps, as is implied by the title, strain to achieve escape velocity from one another. For all its disjunctive energy, though, it is an eminently useful piece of furniture, combining the Platonic ideals of lamp and seat. The piece was made for the exhibition Wendell Castle Remastered (at the Museum of Arts and Design in 2015/2016, and the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester in 2017), which explored his pioneering use of digital technology and inspired return to his early sculptural vocabulary.
Runaway, 2015 Ash and lighting element 76.25 x 89.25 x 48.25 inches 193.7 x 226.7 x 122.6 cm Unique
Installation view: Wendell Castle Remastered, Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, NY, 2017
Ever After Table, 2015 Though modest in scale, this occasional table exemplifies a key theme in Castle’s late work, in which discrete volumes—relatively simple in themselves—are conjoined in energetic and unpredictable configurations. Despite their complex geometry, Castle developed the forms with simple means, carving small foam models by hand, which are ultimately used as the basis of full-scale works in either cast bronze (as here) or carved wood. They show his playful and experimental side; one can imagine him turning the form round and round, producing multiple versions of each idea until he got it just right.
Ever After Table, 2015 Bronze 22 x 22.5 x 15.75 inches 56 x 57 x 40 cm Edition of 8
Onward and Upward, 2015 One of the abiding concerns of Castle’s late work is texture, often highlighted through contrast with smooth surfaces. Onward and Upward is a perfect example. Its swaying verticals and the underside of the seat are covered with minute chisel marks, which like the brushstrokes of a Pointillist painting, serve to dematerialize the sense of mass. The play of light across the work is matched by its tactility; in use, the sitter’s fingers can slide over the slight depressions, a process of pleasurable discovery.
Onward and Upward, 2015 Ash 58 x 55 x 58 inches 147.3 x 139.7 x 147.3 cm Unique
From Where it Came 01 and From it Came 02, 2015 When reduced to its absolute essence, seating design comes down to this: a surface for the body, and a structure to hold that surface off the floor. As their titles suggest, these two works in bronze come very close to that origin point. In each, Castle provides nothing more than a saddle-like concavity and a pair of tapering supports. Yet the objects attest to the old adage: it takes mastery to create something truly simple. As can be seen from their very different affect, he has given them distinct personality through precisely calibrated curvature. From Where it Came 01 is alert and upright, more like being on horseback, while its mate is sweetly relaxed, like a little hillock. Also ingenious is Castle’s use of generous dimensions to make the seats stable: it’s not easy, after all, to make a chair with only two legs.
Right: From Where it Came 01, 2015 Bronze 30 x 37.5 x 13 inches 76 x 95 x 33 cm Edition of 8 Left: From Where it Came 02, 2015 Bronze 22.75 x 31.5 x 12.25 inches 58 x 80 x 31 cm Edition of 8
Two States of Mind, 2016 One of the most sophisticated aspects of Castle’s objects is the way they meet the ground plane. In the case of Two States of Mind, the floor seems to visually “cut off” the curved, conical forms. This produces an effect of emergence and provisionality, qualities that Castle highlighted with an evocative title. In contrast with the slightly earlier Ever After Table, in bronze, this table in stained ash has a compact composition based on its low center of gravity. The comparison is an instructive one, showing how Castle would approach even superficially similar designs in a way that infused each work with its own fully realized character.
Two States of Mind, 2016 Ash 17.75 x 26 x 27 inches 45 x 66 x 68.6 cm Edition of 8
Motown, 2016 One testament to Castle’s generative approach to design is the way that he would revisit his own compositions. For his “Misfit” series—numbering about a dozen works in total—he would go further, cutting existing models apart, twisting them round and rejoining them in various combinations, even putting together halves from two different seats. This is the case with Motown, arguably the most successful of these works, which makes clear the sly conceptual implications of this seeming simple idea. Out of two designs generated at separate times, Castle has created a single fusion. This is entirely in keeping with his precept that one should never accept things as they are. Yet the purposeful abruptness of the joint also signals the difficulty of making a resolved whole out of one’s own past creativity.
Motown, 2016 Ash 34.25 x 65 x 40 inches 87 x 165 x 101.6 cm Unique
Installation view: Wendell Castle: Shifting Vocabularies, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 2018-2019
September Song, 2017 September Song is an unusual composition by Castle’s standards, both relatively symmetrical and extremely vertical, with a set of his signature tapered cones culminating above the seat—a dance-like rhythmic gesture, like fingers at full stretch. It is a prime example of his use of digital technology, with the sinuous vertical shapes intertwining just slightly. This results in intersecting curves that would have been extraordinarily difficult to achieve without the aid of robotic carving. Like Lazy Bones, made the same year, September Song represents a synthesis of the various strands that permeated Castle’s career: the designer, the sculptor, the master woodworker.
September Song, 2017 Ash 56 x 54 x 48.5 inches 142 x 137 x 123 cm Unique
Lazy Bones, 2017 Those artists fortunate enough to retain their full creative energies late in life—Titian and Monet spring to mind—often achieve a particularly relaxed and confident idiom, the visual equivalent of worldly wisdom. The same is true of the works that Castle made immediately prior to his passing in early 2018. Lazy Bones—an apt description of the form, though certainly not the designer himself—exemplifies this depth of perception. It is abstract in every sense of the word, yet also evocative of a limb (of a body, or a tree). Most of all, it is a defiance of conventional wisdom: a seating form without a seat, which dares to be almost not a piece of furniture at all, nor even really a sculpture, yet somehow a masterpiece.
Lazy Bones, 2017 Ash 36 x 93 x 84 inches 91.4 x 236.2 x 213.4 cm Unique
Lost in the Woods, 2017 Many of Castle’s late designs revisit and develop experimental forms he had made in the 1960s. In the case of Lost in the Woods, the inspiration is not the carved masses that are his best-known works of that earlier period, but more sinuous and linear designs, which sometimes snaked unpredictably from wall to floor. The same vocabulary is here employed as the understructure for a seat. For all its fully realized ambition, the sculpture retains the feeling of a quick pen sketch, and Castle’s quicksilver sensibility.
Lost in the Woods, 2017 Ash 31.5 x 58 x 54 inches 80 x 147 x 137 cm Unique
Installation view: Wendell Castle: Progressions, Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, KS, 2018
Solitude, 2017 One of Castle’s very last realized works, Solitude is an elemental condensation of his vocabulary. A cantilevered top, supported on an angled post, is echoed by a single strong bend below. This latter element comes close to the appearance of a natural log, but is in fact stack-laminated, in the same procedure that Castle had pioneered in the 1960s. The desk is one of a group of pieces, many of which are seating forms (such as Lost in the Woods) that take inspiration partly from trees. This was not intended as an explicit depiction, but rather reflected his interest in all forms of compound curvature. Few artists achieved the sophistication with these complex shapes that Castle did. One can only imagine what it was like to create them—as if he had an infinite roller coaster in his mind’s eye.
Solitude, 2017 Ash 29.75 x 69.5 x 34 inches 75.5 x 176.5 x 86.5 cm Unique
Good Neighbors, 2017 Castle loved to make objects that reached out into space, yet he rarely essayed the table form. He was staggeringly ambitious to the last though, and Good Neighbors, along with a handful of other large dining tables he made towards the end of his career, achieve this goal like nothing he’d achieved before. The top extends in a breathtaking blade-like sweep, a great example of Castle’s gestural sensibility at work. The base of Good Neighbors is also a powerful sculpture, with a pair of curved supports (referred to in the title) arching over a boldly expressive squiggle. An elliptical aperture admits views down on to these nested shapes while disrupting the coherence of the top; as so often, Castle found a way to add an unexpected dimension.
Good Neighbors, 2017 Ash 29.5 x 133 x 54.5 inches 75 x 338 x 138.5 cm Unique
Aramis, 2017 In the latter stages of his career, it was comparatively rare for Castle to feature extraordinary timber in his work—his emphasis was instead on pure, inventive form. In the case of Aramis, however, he made maximum use of rosewood that had been in his studio storeroom for years. The low height of the coffee table displays the contrasting light-and-dark striations of this tropical hardwood to great advantage. The undercarriage is in the same serpentine vocabulary as other works realized in this culminating moment, such as Lazy Bones, Lost in the Woods, and Solitude. The table’s playful title refers to one of the Three Musketeers in Alexandre Dumas’s famous novel, positioning the work as one of a trio of related designs: Aramis, Athos, and Porthos.
Aramis, 2017 Rosewood and walnut 17 x 74 x 32 inches 43 x 188 x 81 cm Unique
Wendell Castle’s studio, Scottsville, NY, 2019
WENDELL CASTLE 1932-2018
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, Carpenters Workshop Gallery, London, England
2006-2004
Wendell Castle in Rochester, Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, NY
1961
University of Kansas, Sculpture MFA
2005
Wendell Castle: What Pluck!, Castellani Art Museum, Niagara, NY
1958
University of Kansas, Industrial Design BFA
2004
Wendell Castle: Auto Plastic, R 20th Century, New York, NY
1932
Born, Emporia, KS
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
Select Solo Exhibitions 2019
Wendell Castle: A New Vocabulary, Friedman Benda, New York, NY
1995
Works by Wendell Castle, Atlantic Center for the Arts, New Smyrna Beach, FL
2018-2019
Wendell Castle: Shifting Vocabularies, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO
Art Furniture by Wendell Castle, Orlando Museum of Art, Orlando, FL
2018
Wendell Castle: Progressions, Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, KS
One-Man Exhibit, Chang Gallery, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS
2017
Wendell Castle: Remastered, Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, NY
Wendell Castle: Cabinets 1985 – 1995, A Retrospective Exhibition, Peter Joseph Gallery, New York, NY
Wendell Castle: Embracing Upheaval, Friedman Benda, New York, NY
1994
Ambiguous Objecthood: New Furniture and Drawings by Wendell Castle, Art Complex Museum, Duxbury, MA
2016
Wendell Castle Imagined: A Reveleation of Creative Process, Rochester Institute of Technology University
Wendell Castle: Coming to Grips, Morgan Gallery, Kansas City, MO
Gallery, Rochester, NY
New Work by Wendell Castle, Carleton Art Gallery, Carleton College, Northfield, MN
2015
Wendell Castle Remastered, The Museum of Arts and Design, New York, NY
1993
Wendell Castle: Environmental Works, Peter Joseph Gallery, New York, NY
Gathering Momentum, Friedman Benda, New York, NY
Wendell Castle: Select Early Works (1971-75), Franklin Parrasch Gallery, New York, NY
2014
Wendell Castle: Unflinching Faith, University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh, WI
1991
Angel Chairs: New Work by Wendell Castle, Peter Joseph Gallery, New York, NY
2014-2013
Wendell Castle: Leap of Faith, Carpenters Workshop Gallery, London, UK
1991-1989
Furniture of Wendell Castle, Traveling exhibition: Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI; American
Wendell Castle: Wandering Forms, Works from 1959 – 1979, Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, GA
Craft Museum, New York, NY; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA; Delaware Art Museum,
2013-2012
Wendell Castle: A New Environment, Friedman Benda, New York, NY
Wilmington, DE; Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, NY
Wendell Castle: Volumes and Voids, Barry Friedman, Ltd., New York, NY
1989
Wendell Castle: New Work, Snyderman Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
Wendell Castle: Wandering Forms – Works from 1959-79, The Aldrich Museum, Ridgefield, CT
1988
Wendell Castle: A Decade 1977-1987, Alexander Milliken Gallery, New York, NY
Wendell Castle: Forms within Forms, Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft, Louisville, KY
1986
Time and Defiance of Gravity: Recent Works by Wendell Castle, Traveling exhibition: Mead Art Museum,
2012-2011
Wendell Castle: Best Leg Forward, Carpenters Workshop Gallery, London, UK
Amherst College, Amherst, MA; Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, NY
2011
Wendell Castle in the 21st Century, Belger Arts Center, Kansas City, MO
Wendell Castle, Works in Plastic 1968-1970, 20th Century Gallery, Toronto, Canada
2010
Wendell Castle. Rockin’, Barry Friedman, Ltd., New York, NY
Wendell Castle, Sculpture? Furniture? The Vanishing Line, Fendrick Gallery, Washington, DC
1986-1985
Masterpieces of Time, Traveling exhibiton: The Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum,
Sotheby’s at Sudeley Castle: A Selling Exhibition, Cheltenham, England
Washington, DC; Taft Museum, Cincinnati, OH
2009-2007
Craft in America: Expanding Traditions, Craft in America, Los Angeles, CA
1980
Furniture As Art II, Fendrick Gallery, Washington, DC
2008
New Work by Wendell Castle: Works on Paper by Chuck Close, Wexler Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
1965-1969
The Furniture of Wendell Castle, Traveling exhibition: University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS; State
2007
Shy Boy, She Devil, and Isis: The Art of Conceptual Craft, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
University of New York, Cortland, NY; Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, NY
Not Furniture: XXI Design, Hedge Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1962
Inaugural Show, Hopkins Center, Dartmouth College, Dartmouth, NH; Louisville Art Association, Louisville,
2006
Pop Art and Its Affinities, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA
KY; Ithaca College Museum of Art, Ithaca, NY; Scudder Gallery, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH
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
Select Group Exhibitions 2019
UConn Reads: Game of Thrones, William Benton Museum of Art, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT
2004
Outrageous Home, The Hunterdon Museum of Art, Clinton, NJ
Rites of Spring, Art in Garden, Longhouse Reserve, East Hampton, NY
The White House Collection of American Crafts, Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, Atlanta, GA
2018-2019
When Attitudes Become Chairs, Pizzuti Collection Columbus, OH
Summer Group Show, Marlborough Gallery, New York, NY
Design et Merveilleux, Musée d’art modern, Saint-Priest-en-Jarez, France
Right at Home: American Studio Furniture, Renwick Gallery, Washington, DC
2017-2019
Innovators and Activists: Celebrating Three Decades of New York State Council on the Arts/New York
The Perfect Collection: A Shared Vision of Contemporary Craft, The Fuller Museum, Brockton, MA
Foundation for the Arts Fellowships, Traveling exhibition: Dorsky Musueum, SUNY New Paltz, New Paltz,
2003
Corporal Identity-Body Language, The Museum of Arts and Design, New York, NY
NY; Dowd Gallery, SUNY Cortland, Cortland, NY; Fosdick-Nelson Gallery, Alfred University, Alfred, NY;
The Maker’s Hand: American Studio Furniture, 1940-1990, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
Marion Art Gallery, SUNY Fredonia, Fredonia, NY; Burke Gallery at SUNY Plattsburgh, Plattsburgh, NY;
Kanazawa World Craft Forum 2003, Kanazawa, Japan
Paul W. Zuccaire Gallery at Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY; Center for the Arts, Westchester
Triennial 9 Form & Contents: Corporal Identity-Body Language, Museum Für Angewandte Kunst, Frankfurt,
Community College, Valhalla, NY
Germany
2017
dna10, Friedman Benda, New York, NY
Teasing the Eye: Crafted Illusions, Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC
2017-2016
Wood, Revisited, The Center for Art in Wood, Philadelphia, PA
Significant Objects from the Modern Design Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
2016
Beyond Limits A Selling Exhibition, Sotheby’s at Chatsworth House, Derbyshire, UK
2002
Deceptions & Illusions: Five Centuries of Trompe L’Oeil Painting, The National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
2015
NYC Makers, The Museum of Arts and Design, New York, NY
Embellished with Gold, Decorative Arts Museum, Little Rock, AK
2013-2012
Unicorn Family, The University of Rochester, Rochester Centennial Sculpture Park, Rochester, NY
2001
Objects for Use: Handmade by Design, American Craft Museum, New York, NY
Against the Grain: Wood in Contemporary Art, Craft, & Design, Traveling exhibition: Mint Museum, Charlotte,
Contemporary Craft in the Museum of Fine Arts, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Houston, TX
NC; Museum of Arts and Design, New York, NY; Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art, Fort Lauderdale, FL
1999
Recent Acquisitions, Decorative Arts, Traveling exhibition: Musée des Art Décoratifs, Paris, France; Die
2012-2011
Crafting Modernism: Midcentury American Art and Design, The Museum of Art and Design, New York, NY
Neue Sammlung, Munich, Germany; J.B. Speed Museum, Louisville, KY; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts,
The Abstract Forms of Pablo Picasso and Wendell Castle, Wexler Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
Richmond, VA; Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, OH; Canadian Museum of Civilization, Quebec, Canada;
2010
The Edge of Art: New York State Artists Series, Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY
Montreal Museum of Decorative Arts, Montreal, Canada
1999-1995
The White House Collection of American Crafts, Traveling exhibition: Mint Museum, Charlotte, NC;
1992
Craft Today: USA, The Gulbenkian, Lisbon, Portugal
Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, DE; Tampa Museum of Art, Tampa, FL; Colby College Museum of
1992-1989
Crafted Today USA, Traveling exhibition: The Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum,
Art, Waterville, ME; Art Museum of Western Virginia, Roanoke, VA; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los
Washington DC; Sala Sant Jaume de la Fundacio La Caixa, Barcelona, Spain; The Grassi Museum, Leipzig,
Angeles, CA; American Craft Museum, New York, NY; Rochester Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, NY; The
Germany; Slovak National Gallery, Bratislava, Slovakia; Eommex Cultural Center-Zapperion, Athens, Greece;
Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC
American Haus, Berlin, Germany; St. Peter’s Abbey, Ghent, Belgium; The Oslo Museum of Applied
The Handmade: shifting paradigms, Singapore Art Museum, Singapore, Japan
Art, Oslo, Norway; Ataturk Cultural Center, Ankara, Turkey; Museum of Applied Arts, Moscow, Russia;
Recent Acquisitions of Furniture, Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC
Musée des Art Décoratifs, Lausanne, Switzerland; Zacheta Gallery, Warsaw, Poland; Museum Für
1997
Renwick at 25, Renwick Gallery, Washington, DC
Kunsthandwerk, Frankfurt, Germany; Taidetollisuusmustoi, Helsinki, Finland; Musée des Art Décoratifs,
Celebrating American Craft, The Danish Museum of Decorative Art, Copenhagen, Denmark
Paris, France
Designed for Delight, Alternative Aspects of Twentieth-century Decorative Arts, Traveling Exhibition:
1991
1991 Kanazawa Gran-Prix Arts & Crafts Competition, Kanazawa Culture Hall Gallery, Kanazawa, Japan
Canadian Museum of Civilization, Hull, Canada; Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, OH; Montreal Museum
Masterworks, Peter Joseph Gallery, New York, NY
of Decorative Arts, Montreal, Canada; Musee des Arts Decoratifs, Paris, France; Muzeum Narodowe w
1991-1987
The Eloquent Object: the Evolution of American Art in Craft Media since 1945, Traveling exhibition: Museum
Krakowie, Krakow, Poland; Die Neue Sammlung, Munich, Germany; J.B. Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY;
of Modern Art, Tokyo, Japan; Virginia Museum of Fine Art, Richmond, VA; Orlando Museum of Art, Orlando,
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA
FL; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; The Oakland Museum, Oakland, CA
1997-1996
Four Decades of Discovery: The 40th Anniversary of the American Craft Museum, American Craft Museum,
1989
Artful Objects: Recent American Crafts, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Fort Wayne, IN
New York, NY
1988
Clockwork! List Visual Arts Center, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, MA
1996
New Furniture: Beyond Form and Function, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Ithaca, NY
1988: The World of Art, Today, Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI
Wendell Castle and Nancy Jurs: A Marriage of Life and Art, Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts,
1988-1986
Craft Today: Poetry of the Physical, Traveling exhibition: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA;
Wilmington, DE
J.B. Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY; Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI; The Denver Art Museum;
1996-1995
Breaking Barriers: Recent American Craft, Traveling exhibition: American Craft Museum, New York, NY;
American Craft Museum, Denver, CO
Museum of Art, Albany, GA; Madison Art Center, Madison, WI; Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR
1987
New Work: Wendell Castle, Garry Knox Bennet, Fred Baier, Traveling exhibition: Alexander Milliken Gallery,
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
1987-1985
Material Evidence, New Color Techniques in Handmade Furniture, The Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian
1994
The Object of Pop, Franklin Parrasch Gallery, New York, NY
American Art Museum, Washington, DC
1993
Furniture Fantasy, Susquehanna Art Museum, Harrisburg, PA
1985
High Styles: Twentieth-Century American Design, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
1993-1991
Design 1935-1965: What Modern Was, Traveling exhibition: Canadian Museum of Civilization, Quebec,
1983
Ornamentalism: The New Decorativeness in Architecture and Design, Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, NY
Canada; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal, Canada; Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD;
1980
Sitting in Style, Traveling exhibition: The Society of Arts and Crafts, Boston, MA; The Museum of Fine Arts,
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas, City, MO; Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, OH; Los Angeles County
Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA
1980-1979
New York, NY; A Gallery, Palm Desert, CA
Boston, MA
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
Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, MA
Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI
1976
American Crafts ‘76, an Aesthetic View, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL
American Express, New York, NY
The Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, NC
1976-1975
Craft Multiplies, The Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC
The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, MN
1974-1973
Innovations: Contemporary Home Environs, La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, La Jolla, CA
Belger Arts Center, Kansas City, MO
Mobile Museum of Arts, Mobile, AL
1972
Woodenworks: Furniture Objects by Five Contemporary Craftsmen, Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American
Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY
Museum of Art, St. Louis, MO
Art Museum, Washington, DC; Minnesota Museum of Art, St. Paul, MN
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA
Museum of Art and Design, New York, NY
1972-1969
Objects USA: The Johnson Collection of Contemporary Crafts, Traveling exhibition: Smithsonian American
Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France
Museum of Decorative Arts, Montreal, Canada
Art Museum, Washington DC; University of Rochester, Rochester, NY; Cranbrook Academy of Art,
Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, OH
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
Bloomfield Hills, MI; Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinatti, OH; St. Paul Art Center, Saint Paul, MN; Seattle Art
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Houston, TX
Museum, Seattle, WA; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA
Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, New York, NY
Museum of Modern Art, Design Collection, New York, NY
1970
Attitudes, The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY
Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, NY
Nations Bank, Atlanta, GA
Contemplation Environments, Museum of Contemporary Crafts, New York, NY
Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, NH
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO
1966
Wendell Castle, Wharton Esherick, Sam Maloof, Marcello Grassman, Renaissance Society, University of
Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX
Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseet, Oslo, Norway
Chicago, Chicago, IL
Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, DE
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA
Fantasy Furniture, Museum of Contemporary Crafts, New York, NY
Design Museum Ghent, Ghent, Belgium
Racine Art Museum, Racine, WI
Internationals Kunsthandwerk, 1966, Stuttgart, Germany
Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI
Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY
1964
United States of America Section at the 13th Triennale, Milan, Italy
Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC
The American Craftsman, Museum of Contemporary Crafts, New York, NY
The Forbes Collection, New York, NY
Speed Museum of Art, Louisville, KY
1962
1962 Young Americans, Museum of Contemporary Crafts, New York, NY
Gannett Corporation, Washington DC
Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence, KS
The High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA
Steinway Company, Long Island City, NY
Hunter Museum of Art, Chattanooga, TN
Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, OH
The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel
University of Utah Art Gallery, Salt Lake City, UT
Ithaca College, Art Museum, Ithaca, NY
The University of Rochester, Rochester, NY
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA
Victoria & Albert Museum, London, England
Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester, England
White House Collection of American Crafts, Washington DC
Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, NY
Wichita Art Museum, Wichita, KS
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Wolfsonian Initiative Corporation, Miami, FL
Select Museum and Public Collections
WENDELL CASTLE A NEW VOCABULARY Design: Olivia Swider Texts: Glenn Adamson Photography: Maria Angeletti, Daniel Kukla, Adrien Millot, Butcher Walsh, and Matt Wittemeyer 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 estate of the artist.
A very special thank you to Tricia Tinling and the Wendell Castle Studio. Printed in a limited edition