Rago Auctions Open House Features a Talk on Wharton Esherick by Mark Sfirri on Thursday, October 16

Lambertville, NJ:  The Rago Arts and Auction Center hosts an open house on Thursday, October 16. It features the sculptor and furniture designer Mark Sfirri speaking on “Wharton Esherick: The Reluctant Woodworker” at 6 pm. The talk takes place during the preview week for Rago's 20th C. Decorative Arts and Design Auctions.

Wharton Esherick was born in 1887 in Philadelphia, and died in 1970 in Paoli.  He was a furniture maker and sculptor, mainly using wood as his medium.  In addition to his career as a woodworker, he was a painter, illustrator, block print artist, and architect. His pursuits were inspired in part by his friends, who were involved in the visual and performing arts. Esherick was the unknowing founder of the Studio Furniture Movement in the United States.  His influence endures.

 “Wharton Esherick: The Reluctant Woodworker” explores about the life and work of Esherick as it relates to the development of the studio furniture movement in the United States.  He will touch on the variety of work that Esherick produced beyond furniture and sculpture, as well as the stylistic changes during his career.

Mark Sfirri designs and constructs furniture and sculpture, mostly in wood, incorporating lathe-turned forms on multiple axes in his work. He studied furniture design under Tage Frid at Rhode Island School of Design, where he received a BFA and MFA. He has lectured and demonstrated his techniques throughout North America and Europe, as well as in Australia and New Zealand.  He has written eighteen articles on design, technique, and history for a number of craft publications.

Sfirri has run the Fine Woodworking Program at Bucks County Community College in Newtown, Pennsylvania since 1981.  He has received two national awards:  In 2010, the “Distinguished Educator Award” from the Renwick Alliance of the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institutions; and in 2012, a “Lifetime Achievement Award” by the Collectors of Wood Art. His work is included in twenty-seven public collections including The Museum of Arts & Design in Manhattan, Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, The Renwick Gallery, The Minneapolis Institute of Art, and The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, among others.

Since 2006 Sfirri has been researching the life and work of woodworker Wharton Esherick.  He has authored or co-authored six articles about him for Woodwork and Journal of Modern Craft.  He served on the curatorial team that organized Wharton Esherick and the Birth of the American Modern held at the University of Pennsylvania in 2010, and he spoke about Esherick’s block prints in the accompanying symposium. In 2011 and 2012, Sfirri presented lectures on Esherick in Fairhope, Alabama, where Esherick lived for several influential years early in his career. This year, he spoke on Esherick at a symposium, which was part of the Paul Evans Retrospective at the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown.

The auction house opens on Thursday, October 16 at noon. A reception begins at 5 p.m. Mark will speak at 6 p.m.

RSVP to 609.397.9374 ext. 119 or raac@ragoarts.com. If you unable to RSVP in advance, please join us if you can; all are welcome.

TO THE EDITOR

High-resolution image available on request.

About Rago Arts and Auction Center

Rago is a leading U.S. auction house with $30 million in sales in 2013. We serve thousands of sellers and buyers internationally with a singular blend of global reach and personal service. Rago holds auctions of 20th/21st c. design, fine art, decorative arts, furnishings, jewelry, militaria, coins and currency, Asian, historic ephemera, and ethnographic property.  A world-class venue through which to buy and sell, it offers valuations for personal property (from a single piece to collections and estates), appraisals, estate services, exhibitions and lectures in house and online. Rago is based in New Jersey, midway between Philadelphia and New York City.

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