Subtitle: Contemporary American Crafts in the Philadelphia Museum of Art
Author: Suzanne Ramljak
Subject: Art History/Art
Cloth ISBN 0-8135-3203-5
Pages: 196 pp. 11.5x11.5, 109 color illus.

"Since 1970, the Philadelphia Museum of Art has been actively collecting contemporary American crafts. Here objects by 64 artists are illustrated, selected from the collection of 315 works in ceramics, fiber, glass, metal, wood, and furniture. . . . The objects range from individual interpretations of traditional forms to the highly experimental and idiosyncratic. An excellent examination of American crafts in the late 20th century…Highly recommended. General readers; upper-division undergraduates and graduate students; professionals." - Choice (April 2003)

Suzanne Ramljak's Crafting a Legacy: Contemporary American Crafts at the Philadelphia Museum of Art was awarded an honorable mention in the 2003 AAM Museum Publications Design Competition.

Published to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Philadelphia Museum of Art craft show, Crafting a Legacy showcases the Museum's burgeoning collection of contemporary American crafts. More than one hundred color plates illustrate many of the Museum's prime holdings in ceramics, wood, fiber, glass, metal, and furniture. Entries on sixty-four featured artists, including Dale Chihuly, Wharton Esherick, Sheila Hicks, and Peter Voulkos, place their work in the context of the dynamic field of American crafts. Suzanne Ramljak reveals the valuable role that crafts play in contemporary culture and artistic practice. In a world of bland, mass-produced consumer goods and technologically mediated virtual experience, Ramljak argues that crafts-one-of-a-kind handmade objects-can reawaken our senses. In his introduction, Darrel Sewell, the Robert L. McNeil, Jr., Curator of American Art, outlines 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. The book also includes an illustrated checklist of the Museum's more than three hundred holdings in contemporary crafts.

Crafting a Legacy will be of interest to artists, collectors, and anyone who appreciates the beauty of finely crafted handmade objects.

Suzanne Ramljak, a writer, art historian, and curator, is editor of Metalsmith magazine. She was previously curator of exhibitions at the American Federation of Arts, editor of Sculpture magazine and Glass magazine, and associate editor of American Ceramics magazine. Ramljak has contributed to numerous catalogues and publications, including One of a Kind: American Art Jewelry Today and Turning Wood into Art: The Jane and Arthur Mason Collection. She has lectured widely on twentieth-century art and served as guest curator for several exhibitions, including Seductive Matter and Elie Nadelman: Classical Folk.

Darrell Sewell is the Robert L. McNeil, Jr., Curator of American Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.