Robert Erickson (born 1947 in Lincoln, Nebraska) is an American furniture designer and woodworker in Nevada City, California. He is a studio maker, who custom designs chairs and other furniture. His work is in several U.S. national collections.

Career

After leaving University of Nebraska with an English degree in 1969, Erickson traveled to

Druid Heights Druid Heights was a counterculture enclave in Marin County, California, U.S. that lasted through most of the last half of the 20th century. Poet Elsa Gidlow purchased the property near the Muir Woods National Monument in 1954. She split the land ...

in Marin County, California to study with furniture makers Ed Stiles and Roger Somers. In the summer of 1970, Erickson was employed by

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prizes () are 23 annual awards given by Columbia University in New York City for achievements in the United States in "journalism, arts and letters". They were established in 1917 by the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fo ...

-winning poet

Gary Snyder Gary Snyder (born May 8, 1930) is an American poet, essayist, lecturer, and environmental activist. His early poetry has been associated with the Beat Generation and the San Francisco Renaissance and he has been described as the "poet laureate ...

, said to be inspiration for

Jack Kerouac Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac (; March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969), known as Jack Kerouac, was an American novelist and poet who, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, was a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Of French-Canadian ...

's ''

The Dharma Bums ''The Dharma Bums'' is a 1958 novel by Beat Generation author Jack Kerouac. The basis for the novel's semi-fictional accounts are events occurring years after the events of ''On the Road''. The main characters are the narrator Ray Smith, based o ...

''. His role was to help hand-build a Japanese and Native American-inspired home in Nevada County, California. Erickson Woodworking was established next to Snyder's property the same year when he bought a plot of land to build his workshop, and he also sold his first chair. The wood shop has operated in this location since that time – now with the addition of solar power and phone lines. Most of Erickson's chairs incorporate the "contoured floating back" design, which he began incorporating into his chairs in 1974. Robert Erickson is married to Liese Greensfelder, a science writer who also helps to manage the business. Their son Tor is now a full partner in the business of Erickson Woodworking.

Permanent collections

His work is part of the permanent collection of the

Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM; formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds one of the world's lar ...

Yale University Art Gallery The Yale University Art Gallery (YUAG) is an art museum in New Haven, Connecticut. It houses a major encyclopedic collection of art in several interconnected buildings on the campus of Yale University. Although it embraces all cultures and period ...

and Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Racine Museum of Art.

References

http://artgallery.yale.edu/collections/objects/57188

Career

Permanent collections

References

Further reading