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Lot Essay
The present lot is noted as studio inventory number 48 and number IL.199 in the Wendell Castle catalogue raisonné.
Wendell Castle made a number of pianos, music stands, and piano benches throughout his career, beginning during the marriage to his first wife, a professional singer enrolled at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. Although he began creating musical accouterments for her and other musicians enrolled at the school, he continued long after their separation. This piano bench is made of the familiar stack laminate technique, which allowed Wendell Castle to create forms that were not easily constructed from a single piece of wood. He could stack and glue layers of wooden planks and carve them into shapes that appear to defy gravity due to the strength added through the lamination process. Their unusual shapes extend and grow into the ground resembling the roots of a mangrove tree- organic and free.
Wendell Castle made a number of pianos, music stands, and piano benches throughout his career, beginning during the marriage to his first wife, a professional singer enrolled at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. Although he began creating musical accouterments for her and other musicians enrolled at the school, he continued long after their separation. This piano bench is made of the familiar stack laminate technique, which allowed Wendell Castle to create forms that were not easily constructed from a single piece of wood. He could stack and glue layers of wooden planks and carve them into shapes that appear to defy gravity due to the strength added through the lamination process. Their unusual shapes extend and grow into the ground resembling the roots of a mangrove tree- organic and free.