Skip Navigation

"Nirvana" Armchair

Decorative Arts and Design

Wendell Castle, one of America’s most important contemporary furniture makers, has had several distinct stylistic phases in his career. At first he employed both exotic and native American woods to produce furniture characterized by biomorphic forms and attenuated surrealism. By the 1960s, he had begun experimenting with plastic and fiberglass to create seamless organic designs. In the 1980s, he became fascinated with Post-Modernism and produced highly architectural, polychromatic designs. In 2007 he received the Brooklyn Museum/Modernism Lifetime Achievement Award. The Nirvana chair was a gift of the artist in acknowledgment of the Museum’s ongoing commitment to his work.
MEDIUM Fiberglass
DATES 2007
DIMENSIONS 62 3/8 x 33 5/8 x 33 3/4 in. (158.4 x 85.4 x 85.7 cm)  (show scale)
MARKINGS Impressed and colored red/pink in script under front of seat: "Castle/ 07/m"
ACCESSION NUMBER 2008.78
CREDIT LINE Gift of the artist
CATALOGUE DESCRIPTION Fiberglass blue/purple, asymmetrical, biomorphic, molded, continuous contour fiberglass chair. Large deep wide seat with backwards curving back and crest that flares out and back. Proper right front: flattened rounded arch shaped armrest beneath which is a truncated, torpedo shape leg. Proper left front: thick torpedo shaped canted leg protrudes through extreme proper left of chair. Center back: truncated, slightly canted torpedo shaped leg. Condition: protoype, unused.
MUSEUM LOCATION This item is not on view
CAPTION Wendell Castle (American, 1932–2018). "Nirvana" Armchair, 2007. Fiberglass, 62 3/8 x 33 5/8 x 33 3/4 in. (158.4 x 85.4 x 85.7 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the artist, 2008.78. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 2008.78_PS2.jpg)
EDITION Edition: 1/4 artist's proofs, edition of 8
IMAGE overall, 2008.78_PS2.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph, 2009
"CUR" at the beginning of an image file name means that the image was created by a curatorial staff member. These study images may be digital point-and-shoot photographs, when we don\'t yet have high-quality studio photography, or they may be scans of older negatives, slides, or photographic prints, providing historical documentation of the object.
RIGHTS STATEMENT Creative Commons-BY
You may download and use Brooklyn Museum images of this three-dimensional work in accordance with a Creative Commons license. Fair use, as understood under the United States Copyright Act, may also apply. Please include caption information from this page and credit the Brooklyn Museum. If you need a high resolution file, please fill out our online application form (charges apply). For further information about copyright, we recommend resources at the United States Library of Congress, Cornell University, Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums, and Copyright Watch. For more information about the Museum's rights project, including how rights types are assigned, please see our blog posts on copyright. If you have any information regarding this work and rights to it, please contact copyright@brooklynmuseum.org.
RECORD COMPLETENESS
Not every record you will find here is complete. More information is available for some works than for others, and some entries have been updated more recently. Records are frequently reviewed and revised, and we welcome any additional information you might have.
Wendell Castle (American, 1932–2018). <em>"Nirvana" Armchair</em>, 2007. Fiberglass, 62 3/8 x 33 5/8 x 33 3/4 in. (158.4 x 85.4 x 85.7 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the artist, 2008.78. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 2008.78_PS2.jpg)

TAGS

TAGS