Wendell Castle, a pivotal figure in the American art furniture movement, is being honored through a new exhibition that reconstructs the domestic environment where much of his groundbreaking work originated. The show, organized by his longtime New York gallery Friedman Benda in collaboration with his daughter Alison Castle, recreates the open-plan loft the family occupied in a former mill in Scottsville, New York during the late 1960s and 1970s.
Castle, who passed away in 2018, was known for transforming furniture into sculptural art, pushing the boundaries between craft, art, and functional design. His wife, Nancy Jurs, a ceramic artist, shared the space, which served as both their home and creative workshop. The exhibition, titled "Wendell Castle: Living," aims to highlight how the intimate and experimental living environment influenced the unique organic shapes and forms of their furniture and ceramics.
The Scottsville mill had been converted into a combined living and studio space by the couple. Castle, born in 1932, was already an established figure in the studio furniture movement at that time, teaching at the Rochester Institute of Technology and later at SUNY Brockport. Jurs, born in 1941 and also an RIT graduate, specialized in functional raku-fired pottery. Their home was filled with original works — biomorphic wooden furniture that seemed to grow from the floor, curvaceous plastic pieces by Castle, and Jurs’s expressive ceramic objects. The setting was enriched by textiles and rugs, contributing to an atmosphere where art and everyday life intersected freely.
The exhibition situates the couple’s work within a broader context of the late 1960s and 1970s push to dissolve boundaries between fine art and craft, a movement exemplified by Castle’s presence in the influential 1969 Smithsonian exhibition Objects: USA. This ethos challenged traditional categorization, blending painting, sculpture, and functional objects into a singular creative field.
Despite the aesthetic achievements, life in the loft presented practical challenges. In the late 1970s, as Castle increasingly worked with gel-coated fiberglass, fumes made the living space untenable, prompting the family to relocate while preserving some of their furniture. Alison Castle, reflecting on the era, rediscovered a 1973 House Beautiful magazine feature that vividly documented their home and lifestyle, inspiring the current exhibition and her efforts to continue her father’s legacy through the Wendell Castle Workshop.
Castle’s work evolved from industrial design and sculpture backgrounds, and he recognized early on that furniture design offered a unique arena for both functional and artistic innovation. His pioneering stack lamination technique allowed him to carve complex organic shapes previously unattainable with conventional methods. His experimentation extended to fiberglass, bronze, and robotic carving, underpinning his increasingly ambitious forms.
Unlike many modernist designers who emphasized purism and function alone, Castle embraced function as a catalyst for imaginative design. The exhibition demonstrates this with pieces like a three-seater chair resembling a tree hollow or a desk inspired by expressionist film set designs, merging utility with bold creativity. Jurs’s ceramics, marked by playful and energetic forms, complemented this approach, blurring distinctions between function and sculpture.
"Wendell Castle: Living" divides the gallery into domestic spaces—sitting room, kitchen, office, and bedroom—featuring emblematic works such as a wooden music stand from 1962, a curvilinear walnut stool from 1964, and a coat rack with a sinuous, gown-like form. Jurs’s ceramics, including whimsical kitchen containers and a multilegged ceramic dog, add a vivid, humorous dimension.
Together, the pieces portray how furniture and ceramics became integral characters within the family’s lived space. A floating stained mahogany three-seater settee from 2010, titled "Arcadia," nostalgically recalls their early home, evoking a creative world that Alison Castle regards as a cherished, if lost, paradise.