Modern and Contemporary Craft: Selections from the Robert L. Pfannebecker Collection

Literature

Nicholas R. Bell, A Revolution in Wood: The Bresler Collection, Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., 2010, pp. 136-137 (related examples illustrated)
Lee Nordness, Objects: USA, The Viking Press, New York, p. 261 (for a discussion of the artist)

Artist Biography

Born in 1913 in Warren, Indiana, Bob Stocksdale began his career as a celebrated American woodturner whittling pieces of wood on his family farm. After working in a factory that made cedar chests, Stocksdale was drafted into the Army in 1942, but was a conscientious objector, instead doing forestry work and getting introduced to woodturning. In the late 1940s, Stocksdale moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, where he would spend the remainder of his life and where he was one of the earliest members of the Arts and Crafts Cooperative, Inc. (ACCI) in Berkeley. His wooden bowls can be found in the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and many others. He received many awards for his celebrated work throughout his career as a woodturner, including the American Craft Council’s Gold Medal in 1995.