Take a tour of the Renwick Gallery, the craft division of the Smithsonian, and enjoy an in-depth look at the artists and the work of this unparalleled collection of handmade contemporary furniture. This absorbing volume features profiles and interviews of 64 artists and reveals their artistic influences and interpretations along with 112 stunning photos of iconic work. The best thing about museum collections is that the pieces are all actually there, to be experienced in person. That's also the problem with collections: that the pieces must actually be there. So any collection that purports to be representative of a major movement ends up hamstrung by logistical realities. I'm guessing here, but the seminal piece or piece must not be available in many cases. In this beautiful, wide-format soft cover, Oscar Fitzgerald does an admirable job of describing each maker's importance to the movement, but the book is only as good as the collection itself, and time and again, I found a maker's signature pieces missing. Garry Knox Bennett, John Dunnigan, Wharton Esherick, Michael Hurwitz, Kristina Madsen, Jere Osgood, the names are right but the pieces weren't. The curators had better luck with some than others. Wendell Castle and Sam Maloof got full justice. And I was exposed to wonderful pieces and makers I had never seen before. On the other hand, recent artists were included whose work is, frankly, mediocre. I saw a blasé version of a Windsor chair, a bad knockoff of a Maloof rocker, and a mediocre children's chair by someone who was briefly a student and apprentice and then left the field. And some true heavyweights were left out: David Lamb and Terry Moore, with their unmistakably contemporary but always sure handed takes on period furniture; Brian Newell and Michael Puryear, who do the same thing with Asian and African motifs, respectively. Check past back covers of Fine Woodworking for others. I came away thinking that the way to do a definitive book on the studio furniture movement is not to base it on one exhibit, even one at the nation's greatest museum. Why be at the mercy of a curator's whimsy and the realities of collection when all you need are photos of the pieces, not the pieces themselves? I'll forward that thought to our books department here at the Taunton Press. Maybe they'll take up the mantle. About the Author: Oscar P. Fitzgerald earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in history from Georgetown University and served as director of the Navy Museum in Washington, D.C., until he decided to pursue full time his passion as a furniture historian and decorative arts consultant. He is currently on the faculty of the Smithsonian Institution/Corcoran School Master's Program in the Decorative Arts, where he developed and teaches a core course on the studio furniture movement.His book Four Centuries of American Furniture, which includes coverage of the studio furniture movement, is the standard reference work in the field. In 2004 he was awarded a prestigious James Renwick Research Fellowship, which funded research for an essay published in the 2005 issue of Furniture Studio. About the Book: The 84 pieces of studio furniture owned by the RenwickGallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum constitute one of the largest assemblages of American studio furniture in the nation. Three former administrators-Lloyd Herman, Michael Monroe and Kenneth Trapp-amassed a seminal collection that samples studio furniture's diversity. From the carefully crafted stools ofTage Frid to the art deco chest painted by Rob Womack, from the one-of-akind Ghost Clock sculpture by Wendell Castle to the limited production stool by David Ebner, the collection highlights the astonishing variety of the American studio furniture movement. In this catalogue, author Oscar P. Fitzgerald documents each piece of furniture in a descriptive, illustrated entry. He also recounts the history of the collection's formation in an introductory essay, which illuminates the rationale and aesthetic choices of each curator and notes various donors and support organizations. Finally, Fitzgerald's statistical analysis of the collection, formulated from detailed interviews with the surviving artists, casts new light on workshop practices, marketing concerns and other aspects of the contemporary studio furniture movement. A foreword by noted scholar and curator Paul Greenhalgh gives readers a brilliant overview of the studio furniture field and the intimate role furniture plays in daily life. Art, architecture, and design meet function in this stunning book. Studio Furniture documents and celebrates the masters of the craft while offering a historical retrospective of American furniture practice. A terrific resource for the collector, student or layperson. Fitzgerald offers a long-overdue portfolio showcasing the Renwick Gallery's entire 84-piece collection of crafted American furniture. This critical resource will serve as a foundation for the study and historic prese