Image assets for this folder have not been fully processed.
We apologize for any inconvenience.
Garry Knox Bennett (1934-2022) was a woodworker, sculptor, and furniture designer in Oakland, California.
Bennett was born in Alameda, California to Katherine von Tagen and Robert Bennett, but was raised by his grandparents. He attended the California College of the Arts, then the California College of Arts and Crafts, where he studied painting and began experimenting with metals. During this time he married his wife Sylvia.
He opened a studio in the late 1960s where he produced his famous roach clips, then later opened a larger studio named Squirkenworks in Oakland. In the 1970s, he began working with wood and on 1980 fabricated his infamous Nail Cabinet, a wood cabinet with a single nail driven through the face of the door, which garnered attention not only for Bennett's expert craftsmanship but also for what some saw as disrespect for the craft. Regardless of any controversy Bennett's work created, he became highly respected as a craftsman. In step with his unconventional nature, Bennett exhibited and sold his paintings and jewelry using the pseudonyms Ambrose Pillphister and Gerraldo Bennucci.
Bennett received the Award of Distinction from the Furniture Society and the Master of the Medium Award from the James Renwick Alliance, and was a Fellow of the American Craft Council. A major retrospective, Made in Oakland: The Furniture of Garry Knox Bennett, took place in 2001 at the American Craft Museum in New York and the Oakland Museum in California.
Bennett died unexpectedly in 2022 in Oakland, California.