Throne Bench

During its first decade, the Michener built its collections by partnering with individual donors, artists, artists� families, and community organizations. The museum acquired Robert Whitley�s Throne Bench as a result of its sponsorship of a competition in 1994 that invited woodworkers from the Mid-Atlantic region to design and construct a bench for use by museum visitors.

Whitley, who had earned a national reputation for his workmanship in the contemporary studio furniture movement of the 1970s and �80s, won the competition with his design for a bench fashioned in his signature Throne Series. Whitley has noted that he intended his use of contrasting colored woods in this design to reduce the visual mass of the bench and impart a sense of the walnut seat plank as suspended in space. Since Throne Bench was created to be used as seating furniture by museum visitors, it is part of the Museum�s reference rather than permanent collection.