WENDELL CASTLE'S ART

WENDELL CASTLE’S ART

by Joan K. Yanni

Caligari Clock

 The art of Wendell Castle has long been a favorite of Gallery visitors and staff. Some of his art is always on view: the Suggestion Box, for example, and the Caligari clock.(1967) Recently his Music Rack (1964) was chosen to be part of the new exhibit, Crafting Modernism. In its place now is Table with Tablecloth, one of Castle’s signature trompe l’oeil works, with both table and tablecloth carved of wood. The clock attracts attention immediately. It is located where the Vanden Brul Pavilion opens into the Forman Gallery. It can’t be missed: it is 92 1/2 inches tall and made of curly cherry veneer, ebony and gold-plated brass. It is painted a vivid blue. How does the clock run? It contains a special West German weight-driven movement that strikes every quarter hour. Three small holes in the back near the top permit winding and setting. Other pieces by Castle in the same area of the Gallery include a walnut Suggestion Box, created in 1972 when Castle was producing furniture in natural, organic forms using a lamination technique. Suggestion Box is tree-like, with a natural wood color and grain. Commissioned by the Gallery, it is a combination of desk and ballot box and includes holders for a pen or pencil and specially-made suggestion cards as well as a slot in which Gallery visitors may insert their suggestions. A tiny hole underneath the front of the top permits the insertion of a nail-like key which, with a push, will open the top to expose the suggestions. For almost 50 years Castle’s work has inspired viewers to look at furniture in a new way. Superbly crafted and often filled with a sense of whimsy, his recent pieces reinterpret ideas about function, form, line, color and mass. His work stands in the worlds of furniture, sculpture and design simultaneously. He is often credited with being the father of the art furniture movement. Wendell Castle was born in Kansas in 1932. In 1958 he received an undergraduate degree in industrial February, March 2012 Page 3 design and in 1961 a Master of Fine Arts in sculpture, both from the University of Kansas. He came to the RIT furniture design department in 1962 and taught there in the RIT School for American Craftsmen until 1969. He stopped making furniture for a time in 1969 and concentrated on large, fiberglass sculpture, two examples of which can be seen near Rochester's Chamber of Commerce and at Marine Midland Bank. In 1970 he moved to SUNY Brockport, then returned to RIT in 1984 as tenured professor and artist-in-residence, a position in which Castle gives critiques and lectures, represents RIT nationally, and continues to create. More than two decades ago Ron Netsky, in an article in "Upstate Magazine” said that Castle’s reputation, “established early and bolstered by every new series he creates, has earned him that greatest of commodities, a license to create whatever he wants, knowing there will be a market for his work." His designs have gone from the organic, to the trompe l'oeil, to the whimsical and classical. In 1980 he opened the Wendell Castle School in Scottsville, NY. His bold and experimental works can be found in the permanent collections of many prestigious institutions such as The Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Smithsonian’s American Art Museum, the Renwick Gallery in Washington, D.C. and the Art Institute of Chicago. Castle is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including three honorary doctoral degrees, the 1994 “Visionaries of the American Craft Movement,” sponsored by the American Craft Museum, a 1997 Gold Medal from the American Craft council, and the Modernism Design Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Brooklyn Museum of Art in 2007. His studio is in a renovated bean mill in Scottsville; there he designs and makes drawings which are converted into wood by his staff. Source: Encyclopedia Britannica, Wikipedia, McGraw Hill Dictionary of Art, Curatorial archives.