Wharton Esherick has been called the link between the Arts and Crafts Movement and the resurgent interest in furniture making following World War II, the dean of American craftsmen and the foundation of the current Studio Furniture Movement. On awarding him its gold medal for Craftsmanship, the American Institute of Architects noted, “He led, not followed, the Scandinavians.” His legacy lies not in establishing a style, his designs were too unique, but in pioneering the way for successive generations of artists working in wood to exhibit and market their original, non-traditional designs.

artist02Born and raised in Philadelphia, he learned wood and metal working at Manual Training High School, drawing and printmaking at the Pennsylvania Museum School of Industrial Art and painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. American Impressionism was at its height and, with his bride Letty, he joined the flight of painters from the city to the landscape. They were painting, settling in an old farmhouse near semi-rural Paoli – with enough level land to grow their own food in the event the paintings didn’t sell.

His interest in wood began in 1920 with the carving of simple representational designs on frames for his paintings. This led to carving woodcuts – he carved some 400 blocks, illustrating nine books – and carving on furniture. In the early 1920’s he began sculpting in wood, then considered solely a craft medium. By 1926 his sculpture was being exhibited at the Whitney in New York, and he began construction of an organic, Arts and Crafts style studio.