While handmade ceramics have actually dominated the decorative arts market for the previous years, the discussion is starting to spin in a brand-new direction: turned wood. Similar to tossed pottery, which is shaped as clay turns on a wheel, turned wood vessels are sculpted as they spin on a lathe. However, unlike ceramics, the art type is “just at the beginning of its life cycle,” says New York collector Sascha Bauer, whose collection includes work by Moulthrop Studios, a three-generation woodturning family based in Georgia. “They feel modern but grounded in the past at the very same time.”
The strategy is more than 1,000 years of ages, however today’s practitioners have pushed it far beyond balustrades and salad bowls, producing elaborately carved vessels and sculptures, using grain and burl as nature’s own glazes. The late David Ellsworth, among the type’s fantastic masters, created vases with paper-thin walls; today, J. Paul Fennell sculpts intricate openwork into his.The market is capturing up. On April 21, Rago Auctions will offer Ellsworth’s personal collection– a substantial moment for a field that the auction house’s Suzanne Perrault has been silently building through unmatched sales over the past three years. (Last July, a William Hunter bowl cost a record-breaking $84,000.) A transatlantic divide has even emerged in design: Americans like Ellsworth and Fennell favor smooth veneers and immaculate surfaces, while Europeans– among them Ernst Gamperl and Eleanor Lakelin, whose work is presently on view in New York at Rosenberg & Co.– lean into wood’s natural flaws. “Seeing this extraordinary craft renewed in contemporary art is actually interesting,” says London gallerist Sarah Myerscough, who represents several of the leading European woodturners. Better yet, the majority of works can still be had for just a few thousand dollars– a minimum of for now.– Julie Brener Davich
What to Specification Now
Home of Santal Reveals a Streamlined Side to South Asian Craft
.jpg)
The Ghee console table by Rhizome (left )and a midcentury-modern carpet, courtesy of Rug and Kilim Image: Joe Kramm.jpg)
Indigo (left) and Trapeze (right), both by Nishita Kamdar for Pod
Photo: Joe Kramm
Growing up in India, Raksha Sanikam was a direct witness to a renaissance in South Asian style. “Back then, it was just craftspeople making pieces,” the New York– based manager states. “Over the last 10 to 15 years, designers and craftspeople began interacting to develop distinctive pieces that consider craft from the very start.” Sanikam, who participated in school in the US, operated in financing and equity capital spaces before recognizing her true passion might lie closer to home: House of Santal is Sanikam’s first gallery, in which she’ll present solely South Asian furniture, objects, and sculptures in an 8,000-square-foot Rockefeller Center showroom.