Since the outset of his career, Wendell Castle consistently challenged the traditional boundaries of functional design and established himself as the father of the American studio furniture movement. Castle is renowned for his superb craftsmanship, his whimsically organic forms and his development of original techniques for shaping solid, stack-laminated wood. A celebration of his suberb craftsmanship and development of original techniques, The Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art’s exhibition “Wendell Castle: Progressions” will highlight full breadth of Wendell Castle’s design process from inspiration to execution. This exhibition from Castle, who was born in Emporia, Kansas in 1932, the Nerman Museum furthers the commitment to Kansas-born artists.
Wendell Castle: Progressions will be an examination of Castle’s later practice of combining handcraftsmanship with digital technologies, specifically through the use of 3D scanning, computer aided design (CAD) software, and a computer numerical control (CNC) machine outfitted with various routing bits and affectionately dubbed Mr. Chips.
Progression was organized in concert with the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art’s Wendell Castle: Shifting Vocabularies exhibition to celebrate the legacy of an iconic Kansas artist.
