The Renwick Gallery is a branch of the Smithsonian American Art Museum located in Washington, D.C. that displays American craft and decorative arts from the 19th to 21st century. The gallery is housed in a National Historic Landmark building that was opened in 1859 on Pennsylvania Avenue and originally housed the Corcoran Gallery of Art. When it was built in 1859, it was called "the American Louvre", and is now named for its architect James Renwick Jr.
Judy Jensen is an American artist who resides in Austin, Texas. She is best known for her reverse painting on glass, although she incorporates other mixed media into her glass pieces. According to Nancy Bless, Jensen's works "lie somewhere between a collage and a collection."
Wendell Castle was an American sculptor and furniture maker and an important figure in late 20th century American craft. He has been referred to as the "father of the art furniture movement" and included in the "Big 4" of modern woodworking with Wharton Esherick, George Nakashima, and Sam Maloof.
Akio Takamori was a Japanese-American ceramic sculptor and educator. Takamori often incorporates human forms into his creations.
Albert Paley is an American modernist metal sculptor. Initially starting out as a jeweler, Paley has become one of the most distinguished and influential metalsmiths in the world. Within each of his works, three foundational elements stay true: the natural environment, the built environment, and the human presence. Paley is the first metal sculptor to have received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Institute of Architects. He lives and works in Rochester, New York with his wife, Frances.
John Rais is an American designer, blacksmith and sculptor, known for his decorative architectural work, vessels, and furniture. Rais primarily works in steel as well as titanium, bronze, copper, stainless steel, and other materials. He is well known for his one-of-a-kind firescreens. He has resided in Layton, New Jersey; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Anne Wilson is a Chicago-based visual artist. Wilson creates sculpture, drawings, Internet projects, photography, performance, and DVD stop motion animations employing table linens, bed sheets, human hair, lace, thread and wire. Her work extends the traditional processes of fiber art to other media. Wilson is a professor in the Department of Fiber and Material Studies at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Rosanne Somerson is an American-born woodworker, furniture designer/maker, educator, and former President of Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). An artist connected with the early years of the Studio Furniture, her work and career have been influential to the field.
Gary Lee Noffke is an American artist and metalsmith. Known for versatility and originality, he is a blacksmith, coppersmith, silversmith, goldsmith, and toolmaker. He has produced gold and silver hollowware, cutlery, jewelry, and forged steelware. Noffke is noted for his technical versatility, his pioneering research into hot forging, the introduction of new alloys, and his ability to both build on and challenge traditional techniques. He has been called the metalsmith's metalsmith, a pacesetter, and a maverick. He is also an educator who has mentored an entire generation of metalsmiths. He has received numerous awards and honors. He has exhibited internationally, and his work is represented in collections around the world.
Tom Joyce is a sculptor and MacArthur Fellow known for his work in forged steel and cast iron. Using skills and technology acquired through early training as a blacksmith, Joyce addresses the environmental, political, and social implications of using iron in his work. Exhibited internationally since the 1980s, his work is included in 30-plus public collections in the U.S. and abroad. Joyce works in Santa Fe, New Mexico producing sculpture, drawings, prints, photographs, and videos that reference themes of iron in the human body, iron in industry, and iron in the natural world.
Beth Lipman is a contemporary artist working in glass. She is best known for her glass still-life compositions which reference the work of 16th- and 17th-century European painters.
Myra Mimlitsch-Gray is an American metalsmith, artist, critic, and educator living and working in Stone Ridge, New York. Mimlitsch-Gray's work has been shown nationally at such venues as the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Museum of the City of New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, and Museum of Arts and Design. Her work has shown internationally at such venues as the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, Stadtisches Museum Gottingen, and the Victoria and Albert Museum, and is held in public and private collections in the U.S, Europe, and Asia.
Jack Earl is an American ceramic artist and former teacher, known for drawing inspiration from his home state of Ohio to create rural pieces “with meticulous craftsmanship and astute details… to where you could smell the air, hear the silence and swat the flies.” Although his works hint at highly personal, intellectual, and narrative themes in an almost unsettling manner, Earl is “a self-described anti-intellectual who shuns the art world." He is known particularly for using his trademark format, the dos-a-dos : “This art form is like a book with two stories… the two seemingly incongruent images prompt the viewer to fill in the conceptual gap through poetic speculation.” His work often involves dogs or the character “Bill”, who is said to be a combination of Earl’s father-in-law, himself, and others. The titles to his pieces are typically lengthy, stream-of-consciousness narratives that suggest the folk or rural lifestyle. These are intended to add another dimension to the artwork. His work has received a notable response over his decades-long career, especially since he is regarded as “a master at reminding us that within the events we take for granted are moments of never-ending mystery and wonder.” Earl continues to live in Lakeview, Ohio with his wife, Fairlie.
Karen Thuesen Massaro is a ceramicist working in the United States known for creating unconventional arrangements of sculptural objects through her work. Interested in exploring abstraction, she has experimented with a variety of different themes including the repetition of forms and surface textural change, negative space, and the geometric patterning of natural objects. Massaro creates much of her artwork by taking casts of physical objects, like fruit, molding them out of clay, and decorating them with patterns. Her manipulations make common objects feel less ordinary. These experiments allow her to explore color and form in complex ways.
Emery O. Blagdon was an American artist.
Sharif Bey is an African American artist, ceramicist, and professor. He produces functional pottery as well as ceramic and mixed-media sculptures using various forms and textures. His body of work reflects his interest in the visual heritage of Africa and Oceania and contemporary African American culture. With his colorful large-scale bead sculptures, Bey explores the cultural and political significance of ornamentation and adornment.
Joan Livingstone is an American contemporary artist, educator, curator, and author based in Chicago. She creates sculptural objects, installations, prints, and collages that reference the human body and bodily experience.
Dia Bridgehampton is a museum in Bridgehampton, New York run by the Dia Art Foundation. Opened in 1983 as the Dan Flavin Art Institute, the building was renovated by Dia, under the direction of minimalist sculptor Dan Flavin, as a permanent display of his fluorescent light works in a single-artist museum. The museum also houses a gallery for temporary exhibitions, and a display of historic objects related to the building from before it became a museum.
Norman Teague is an American social practice artist, designer, furniture maker, and educator. Teague co-founded the Chicago-based design studio, blkHaUs Studios, and in 2019 went on to form his own Norman Teague Design Studios. In addition to his studio practices Teague currently resides as a professor in the school of industrial design at University of Illinois Chicago.
Dorian (Dohrn) Zachai was an American fiber artist. Her work was included in the 1963 exhibition Woven Forms at the Museum of Contemporary Crafts in New York City. She is considered an important innovator in the field of fiber art.
