American furniture designer Wendell Castle was among the most outstanding contributors to woodworking, committing his nearly six-decade career to expanding the boundaries of the field. Castle studied industrial design and sculpture at the University of Kansas between 1958 and 1961. He was introduced to the stack-lamination technique shortly after completing his training, a method that involves the stacking of wooden sheets upon one another, enabling the woodworker to carve complex shapes and sinuous lines from the amalgamated material. Utilizing this process, Castle sculpted fantastic and winsome pieces, each one a sculptural masterpiece and functional object.

Sculpting streamlined, organic, and expressionist forms, Castle engaged with the formal vernacular of such acclaimed modernists as Jean Arp and Henry Moore. Internationally acclaimed, Castle’s work is held in the permanent collections of the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, among several others.