Crafting a Legacy: Contemporary American Crafts at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Crafting a Legacy showcases the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s burgeoning collection of contemporary American crafts. More than a hundred color plates illustrate many of the Museum’s prime holdings in ceramics, wood, fiber, glass, metal, and furniture. Entries on each of the sixty-three featured artists, including Rudolf Staffel, Sheila Hicks, Dale Chihuly, and Judy McKie, place the artist’s work in a broader context. Suzanne Ramljak, editor of Metalsmith magazine, provides an essay on the valuable role that crafts play in contemporary culture, arguing that in a world of mass-produced goods, one-of-a-kind handmade objects act as
agents of resistance
to reawaken our senses. An introduction by Darrel Sewell, the Robert L. McNeil, Jr., Curator of American Art, discusses 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. This catalog is published to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show, sponsored by the Women’s Committee.