PRESS RELEASE
AMERICAN AND FRENCH DESIGN LEAD PHILLIPS’ DECEMBER AUCTION IN NEW YORK
Exceptional Works by Wendell Castle, Guy De Rougemont, and George Nakashima to be Offered on 13 December Alongside Important Examples of British and American Ceramics and Italian Lighting
Wendell Castle
Dining table, 1971
Estimate: $150,000 - 200,000
NEW YORK – 20 NOVEMBER 2025 – This season, Phillips will showcase important examples of 20th-century and contemporary design in the New York auction on 13 December. Leading the sale are works by Wendell Castle, Guy De Rougemont, and George Nakashima. Making its auction debut, Castle’s extraordinary asymmetrical dining table made from stack-laminated walnut wood, perfectly encapsulates the artist’s fascination with rhythm, balance, and metamorphosis. British and American ceramics also feature prominently, with examples by Hans Coper, Kathy Butterly, and Doyle Lane also being offered in the auction. A strong selection of Italian and French lighting will be led by Albert Cheuret, Paul Dupré-Lafon, and Gabriella Crespi. Leading up to the Saturday auction, Phillips will host a public exhibition, open from 5-12 December at 432 Park Avenue.
Wendell Castle’s 1966 dining table and accompanying six chairs, offered as separate lots in the upcoming sale, exemplify the artist’s sculptural approach to furniture design. A central figure in the American Studio Furniture movement, Castle treated furniture as a three-dimensional form capable of abstraction, rhythm, and motion. Trained as a sculptor, he developed the stack lamination technique — gluing and carving multiple layers of wood to create seamless, volumetric forms — freeing design from traditional joinery constraints. The dining table, with its asymmetrical walnut base, marks a key moment in Castle’s exploration of furniture as art. The present chairs, commissioned by the consignor nearly 40 years later, are likely among the last works Castle executed and embody his ethos of invention, distortion, and the pursuit of perfect form unburdened by function.
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