"Nirvana" Armchair

Wendell Castle, one of America’s most important contemporary furniture makers, has had several distinct stylistic phases in his career. At first he employed both exotic and native American woods to produce furniture characterized by biomorphic forms and attenuated surrealism. By the 1960s, he had begun experimenting with plastic and fiberglass to create seamless organic designs. In the 1980s, he became fascinated with Post-Modernism and produced highly architectural, polychromatic designs. In 2007 he received the Brooklyn Museum/Modernism Lifetime Achievement Award. The Nirvana chair was a gift of the artist in acknowledgment of the Museum’s ongoing commitment to his work.