Paul Evans Bronze, slate and wood chest of drawers

Brown chest of drawers in bronze, slate and wood by Paul Evans.

A leader of the American Studio Furniture movement, Evans' work manifests a singular aesthetic sense, as well as a contradictory appreciation for both "folk art" forms and new materials and technologies.

An embodiment of modernity in the USA since the 1960s, with an innovative and experimental approach to metal, American designer Paul Evans has long remained anonymous, unknown in Europe. It was gallerist Patrick Fourtin who dedicated his first exhibition to him in France in 2004. Today, contemporary art collectors are snapping up his pieces, and Lenny Kravitz and Elton John are among his fan clubs. At the age of 24, after studying sculpting and silversmithing, Evans moved to New Hope, Pennsylvania, where his neighbors were George Nakashima and Wendell Castle, famous for their wooden furniture. He set himself apart by creating furniture: lamps, tables, sideboards, cabinets and sculptures in copper, pewter, bronze, silver, gold and steel. The fusion of metals gives way to hard, textured surfaces, with a patina of paint and acid. In 1964, his collaboration with the publishing house Directional impulse a new phase in his career; the sculptor becomes a designer, Paul Evans is unclassifiable, his creations fascinating by their artistic force and sophisticated beauty.

Evans' main material was metal, not wood, which was favored by fellow studio designers and Bucks County, Pennsylvania, neighbors George Nakashima and Philip Lloyd Powell. He trained in metalworking and studied at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, the famous melting pot of modern design and art in suburban Detroit. Early in his career, Evans also worked at Sturbridge Village, a historic Massachusetts "living museum", where he demonstrated as a costumed silversmith. Evans' early work unites these influences. The pieces that made his name are known as "carved face" cabinets: wooden boxes covered with box-like mounts of high-relief patinated steel arranged in a grid pattern. Each frame contains a metal emblem, or glyph, and the effect is that of a muscular quilt.