International Decorative Art

Zephyr Chair

Zephyr Chair

Design Date 1979

Designer Wendell Castle (1932–2018, American)

Manufacturer Wendell Castle, Rochester, NY

Media walnut

Dimensions 28 x 25 1/2 x 23 inches

Wendell Castle was a well-known figure in the production of craft-based furniture. He was known for creating sculptural, functional and whimsical furniture throughout his career. This chair has no hard edges; it flows organically from top to bottom and manages to give us a new iteration of a cantilever chair made popular decades earlier. Castle developed an original technique of shaping or carving solid, stack-laminated wood, which freed him from traditional joinery techniques. Each Zephyr Chair is considered unique because the backrest and the seat are hand sculpted.

ON VIEW in Studio Exhibition Room 14

Markings Carved into wood on right leg, "W. Castle 79"

Credit Line Collection Kirkland Museum of Fine & Decorative Art

Accession Number 2012.0700