r - The Metropolitan Museum of Art

--,
N o movement has had more than a
handful of outstanding artists who
give character to a style and direction to
the production of others. Wendell Castle
(b. 1932) has assumed this role since his
graduation with a Master of Fine Arts
degree in sculpture from the University of
Kansas in 1961. He has experimented
with furniture as a form of sculpture, freed
from structural convention. The laminated
cherrywood blocks of his 1973 two-seater
are built up to a solid structure and then
carved awav anrl polished to an effect of
visual ;inrd-l tactile flow. Finlike pedestals
.uu;prt angled bucket seats that accom
;, i .int twCo neople in conversational
proximity, an arrangement that .led John
Russell to write in The New York Times.
'Togetherness takes on a new dimension
as we contemplate it Not since the 'indiscretion
sofa' was perfected in the France
of Napoleon III has there been a piece of
furniture that eggs us on so subtly to a
joint and vertiginous well-being."
W 6012 in. Gift of Dr and Mrs. Irwin R.
Berman. 1977.225