Rake Back Chair, 1981
White Oak, Astro Turf, Rake, 35" x 21" x 17"
Cross-Cut Saw, 1982
Wood, 34" x 11" x 2"
Lee A. Schuette was born in Berlin, New Hampshire, in 1951. In 1971 he apprenticed with Jack O’Leary at Tariki Stoneware in Meriden, New Hampshire. The following year he attended the Pilchuck Glass School in Stanwood, Washington. He received a B.F.A. from the University of Hampshire in Durham, and an M.F.A. from the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence. For the next three years he taught at the Wendell Castle Workshop in Scottsville, New York. A recipient of several awards, Schuette has been an instructor and an architectural designer in addition to a creator of highly innovative sculpture and furniture. His work has been exhibited at the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, the Museum of Contemporary Crafts in New York, the Rhode Island School of Design, and the Renwick Gallery in Washington, D.C. Drawing directly from nature and everyday life, Schuette challenges conventional ideas of furniture and materiality in his whimsical, masterfully crafted works.
*Excerpted from Tools as Art: The Hechinger Collection, published by Harry N. Abrams Inc.