Music Rack
1964
53 1/2 x 26 x 20 in. (135.9 x 66 x 50.8 cm)
Wendell Castle
United States
(Emporia, KS, 1932 - 2018, Scottsville, NY)
Object Type:
Furniture
Medium and Support:
Oak and Brazilian rosewood
Credit Line:
Given in honor of Marion J. Hawks by her family, by exchange
Accession Number:
2010.7
Location: Not currently on view
The elegant tapered lines of Music Rack reflect the influence of renowned Pennsylvania artist-craftsman Wharton Esherick, whose work Castle credits with teaching him “that the making of furniture could be a form of sculpture.” Using bentwood lamination as a technique, Castle was able to create the “gentle, but regular organic curve” of the sculpture, whose central trunk mimics “a supple, bent sapling.”
Music Rack was the first of Castle’s works to receive international attention. Not only was it included in an important design exhibition in Milan, but a review of the show in Time magazine featured a color image of it. All twelve versions of the original edition sold quickly, several to museum collections including the American Craft Museum. This work is now considered one of Castle’s most iconic.
For over forty years the music rack was owned by Temple B’rith Kodesh in Brighton. The congregation offered it for sale to the MAG to ensure that it would be properly taken care of for generations to come.
[Summer 2015]
Bibliography
See artist's description of the making of this edition of music stands in Jeannine Falino's
Crafting Modernism, Museum of Art and Design, New York, 2011: pp. 132-133, fig. 6.10 and cat. 185; and chapter five of the artist's book
The Wendell Castle Book of Wood Lamination, New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold co., 1980, p. 74-87.
Keywords
Click a term to view the records with the same keyword
Additional Images
Click an image to view a larger version
Exhibition List
This object was included in the following exhibitions:
Bibliography
This object has the following bibliographic references:
-
Memorial Art Gallery.
ARTiculate.
Rochester, NY: Memorial Art Gallery, 2000--.
-
Article Author: Jacobson, Sebby Wilson.
Article Title: A Portrait of the Artist as a Very Young Octogenarian.
Article Scope: Article and reproduction.
American Craft.
Volume Number: 72,
Issue Number: 6.
Issue Date: December 2012/January 2013.
Page Number: 71
-
Article Scope: Discussion and reproduction.
Alastair Gordon.
Wendell Castle: Wandering Forms : Works from 1959 to 1979.
Ridgefield, CT: Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art , 2012.
-
Article Scope: Catalogue Raisonné entry and reproduction.
Emily Evans Eerdmans.
Wendell Castle: A Catalogue Raisonné, 1958-2012.
New York, NY: Artist Book Foundation, 2014.
-
Article Title: The Old Crafts find New Hands.
Article Scope: Mention and reproduction.
Life Magazine.
Issue Date: July 29, 1966.
-
Article Scope: Mention and reproduction.
Marjorie Searl
and Lu Harper.
The Memorial Art Gallery: 100 Years.
Rochester, NY: Memorial Art Gallery, 2013.
Portfolio List
Click a portfolio name to view all the objects in that portfolio
This object is a member of the following portfolios: