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by Suzanne Ramljak
Hardcover: 191 pages
Publisher: Rutgers University Press (2002)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0-8135-3203-5
Dimensions: 11.9" x 11.9" x 0.95"
Shipping Weight: 3.81 lbs.
Published to mark the 25th anniversary of the Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft
Show, Crafting a Legacy showcases the Museum's burgeoning collection
of contemporary American crafts. More than one hundred color plates illustrate
many of the Museum's prime holdings in ceramics, wood, fiber, glass, metal, and
furniture. Entries on sixty-four featured artists, including Dale Chihuly, Wharton
Esherick, Sheila Hicks, and Peter Voulkos, place their work in the context of
the dynamic field of American crafts. Suzanne Ramljak reveals the valuable role
that crafts play in contemporary culture and artistic practice. In a world of
bland, mass-produced consumer goods and technologically medicated virtual experience,
Ramljak argues that crafts—one-of-a-kind handmade objects—can reawaken
our senses. In his introduction, Darrel Sewell, the Robert L. McNeil, Jr., Curator
of American Art, outlines the history of the crafts collection at the Philadelphia
Museum of Art, as well as the vital role Philadelphia has played as a center for
innovation in contemporary crafts. The book also includes an illustrated checklist
of the Museum's more than three hundred holdings in contemporary crafts.
Crafting a Legacy will be of interests to artists, collectors, and all
who appreciate the beauty of finely crafted handmade objects. |