Wendell Castle: Living at Friedman Benda

Friedman Benda in Chelsea is presenting Wendell Castle: Living, on view from September 17 to October 17, 2026. The show is less a survey of objects than a recreation of a way of life: the home that Castle (1932–2018) shared with his wife, the ceramist and multimedia artist Nancy Jurs (b. 1941), in Scottsville, New York.

The starting point is a 1973 House Beautiful feature on that house. Their daughter, Alison Castle, who curated the exhibition, came across the photographs in a scrapbook her mother made in 1980 as a birthday gift for her father. Nearly everything in the home had been designed or made by Castle, Jurs, or their artist friends, and the pictures show work and domestic life fully intertwined.

Several pieces seen in the magazine, and not shown publicly since, have been lent by the family. They include Castle's sculptural furniture in wood and in molded plastic, among the first furnishings made in that material in America, alongside Jurs's functional and sculptural ceramics. Household objects are arranged to suggest a kitchen, a bedroom, a living room and a dining room. Alison Castle says these works are now usually encountered in museums, yet as furniture they were made to be used, and she wants visitors to sense what it is like to live with them.

Early landmarks on view are Chaise Rocker (1962), Floor Lamp (1967) and the multifunctional Environment (1972). Later works include Caligari's Mistress's Desk and Chair (1990), Arcadia (2010) and Opposites Attract (2017), tracing the long arc of his career. Forgotten Dream (2016), an ash piece in an edition of eight, is also listed with the show.

Castle was born in Emporia, Kansas, and studied industrial design and sculpture at the University of Kansas before moving to Rochester to teach. In 1963 he pioneered stack lamination, which freed him from the limits of wood as a material. He took part in the 1964 Milan Triennale and the touring show Objects USA (1969), and his work is held by more than 40 institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art and the V&A. He is often called the father of the American studio furniture movement.

The gallery is at 515 West 26th Street. The exhibition closes on October 17.