Inspired by China: Contemporary Furnituremakers Explore Chinese Traditions - Hardcover

Nancy Berliner.; Edward S. Cooke Jr.

9780875772073: Inspired by China: Contemporary Furnituremakers Explore Chinese Traditions

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0875772072 ISBN 13: 9780875772073

Publisher: Peabody Essex Museum, 2007

In 2005, a group of studio furnituremakers from China, Canada, and the United States gathered at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, for a three-day intensive exploration of historical Chinese furniture. Inspired by China documents the exploration that took place during the workshop and demonstrates the provocative results launched in response. This book brings together new work by 22 preeminent North American and Chinese studio furnituremakers in a way that both celebrates each individual's work and looks at the experience of inspiration as a unifying process. Essays provide historical background from both Chinese and American furniture perspectives. Illustrations showcase both historical pieces of Chinese furniture and their contemporary offspring that resulted from the Inspired by China workshop. Ranging from respectful reinterpretations of chairs, stools, and tables to sculptural reimaginings of purpose and structure, these pieces of furniture combine to tell an eloquent story of cross-cultural interchange and community.

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From the Inside Flap:

Focuses on a group of leading studio furniture artists whose response to the forms, materials, techniques, and meaning of China's rich furniture traditions reveals the creative power of an exchange in art and culture. This graceful book showcases furniture produced by 22 American, Canadian, and Chinese studio furniture makers for the Peabody Essex Museum.

About the Author:

Nancy Berliner is curator of Chinese art at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts.

Edward S. Cooke Jr. is the Charles F. Montgomery Professor of American Decorative Arts at Yale University.

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