Garry Knox Bennett is a furniture maker who works in Oakland, CA. He attended the California College of Arts and Crafts (currently California College of the Arts) where he learned to paint and sculpt. In the 1960s, he used the skills he learned to found a metal plating business, specializing in handmade jewelry.
In the 1970s he began making clocks which expanded into furniture design. He is most well known for his chairs and use of conventional woods and materials such as plywood, aluminum, steel, and plastics. Bennett’s work is represented in the collections of the Museum of Arts and Design, de Young Museum, Mint Museum of Craft + Design, Montreal Museum of Art, Oakland Museum of California, Racine Art Museum, Renwick Gallery, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. In 2001, he had a retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City.
Garry Knox Bennett, Ladderback, 2003. M. Lee Fatheree photographGarry Knox Bennett, Nail Cabinet, 1979Garry Knox Bennet, Bamboo Container Light, 2015 (r). Garry Knox Bennet, Magic Bulb Light, 2015 (l).Garry Knox Bennett, GR#13, 2003
at the Mingei International Museum
Jackie Mirabel photoGarry Knox Bennett, Winged Clock, Red Baron, Roach clipsGarry Knox Bennett, Desk with Chair, 2013. Tom and Toni Bostick photograph. Since the 1960s, Bennett has been a revolutionary force in the California
studio furniture scene. He channels irreverence, subversion and
playfulness into meticulously crafted furniture sculptures. Bennett’s
incorporation of unconventional materials, the rejection of pretension
and dialogging with historic paradigms made him a luminary in the
Postmodernist design scene. The diminutive scale of this desk set, an
understated piece from an artist adored for his audacity, forms a
personal space of retreat and reflection for its user.
