Artisan Design: Collectible Furniture in the Digital Age

Design historian Gura (1935–2020) (Design After Modernism) offers a spectacular guidebook to artisan furniture in this posthumous collection. Gura covers the work of more than 100 artists: there’s early industry pioneer Wharton Esherick’s 1950s curvilinear pieces, George Nakashima’s stark wooden chairs from the ’70s, whimsical chairs from Marcel Wanders made in 2013, and contemporary nature-filled resin forms made by Sasha Sykes. The most fun section showcases tongue-in-cheek works, such as Tom Loeser’s bench made of repurposed shovel handles and Hubert le Gall’s “Pot de Fleur,” a set of chairs that when joined looks like a flowerpot. To wrap up her master-class, Gura tours private collections—readers get a look inside Elvis’s former home in Los Angeles (which is now a gallery), a luxurious house on stilts in Miami Beach filled with one of a kind furniture, and a New York City apartment that holds a fig leaf–covered cabinet. Gura skillfully highlights the changes that the craft has seen through decades as she traces the different movements, how they influenced each other, and the evolution of furniture as technologies changed and new techniques were introduced. Design enthusiasts will want this on their coffee tables. (Oct.)