Handwork: Handcrafted Objects that Made America

Handwork: Handcrafted Objects that Made America (Monacelli, a Phaidon Company, 2026) is a visually stunning celebration of America’s spirit through ordinary, surprising, and overlooked handcrafted objects spanning more than 250 years. The volume is the official book of Handwork: Celebrating American Craft 2026—Craft in America’s yearlong, nationwide initiative featuring hundreds of museum exhibitions and events, a four-part docuseries on PBS, and specially designed educational components. The Decorative Arts Trust is a participating organization in the Handwork 2026 collaboration, sharing our Semiquincentennial project, Collecting250.org, with partners throughout the United States.

Edited by Emily Zaiden, Director and Lead Curator of the Craft in America Center, with a foreword by Carol Sauvion, the visionary behind the Peabody Award–winning series Craft in America on PBS, Handwork takes readers on a journey through time and across the multiplicity of cultures that make up the nation, uncovering the powerful stories behind objects that shaped American life. The book groups handmade objects into four curated sections—DWELL, FEED, FURNISH, ADORN—and highlights objects that reflect innovation, resistance, artistry, and community.

Handwork includes illuminating texts from more than 30 specialists nationwide that accompany each object, emphasizing underrepresented narratives and artists who helped define American life through their craft. Dozens of curators and scholars familiar to the Trust community contributed to the publication, which also shares objects that are highlighted in Collecting250. Some of the overlapping objects convey America’s complicated past as well as its rich aggregate of cultures. A silver punch bowl smithed by Paul Revere for the Sons of Liberty and a monumental basket form titled Never Again woven by Mary Jackson tell narratives about liberation from different perspectives. The Trust’s Board Secretary Alexandra Alevizatos Kirtley from the Philadelphia Museum of Art discusses, among other objects, the strong aesthetic visions exemplified in a 1770–72 American China Manufactory pickle stand and a 1779 Pennsylvanian German kleiderschrank. Trust Governor Monica Obniski from the High Museum of Art delves into an 1830–60 Tennessee pie safe (see below) and an 1898 William Marrett/Libbey Glass Company punch bowl. Former Trust Governor Nonie Gadsden from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, analyzes a c. 1700 miniature fork and spoon set, a 1730–50 Boston card table, a 1906–20 Frank Gardner Hale necklace, and a 1909 Matilda “Tillie” Block mug.

The Trust’s Executive Director Matthew A. Thurlow also contributed his insight into American history, material culture, and furniture through two captivating object stories from the Early Republic. Thurlow writes about a stately Senate armchair, which was an outcome of the rebuilding process that followed the War of 1812, and the toolchest of renowned early-19th-century furniture maker Duncan Phyfe, which is as much a cherished heirloom as one of his coveted chairs or tables.

Contemporary objects are featured throughout the book, connecting the dots from past to present illustrating how rooted craft traditions continue to influence current makers, a testament to the human ingenuity that continues to shape American culture. Ceramic artist Roberto Lugo highlights a 1200–1450 bird-form pendant from the Sinagua peoples of the Verde Valley in Arizona, and Mira Nakashima muses on her father George’s 1988 Arlyn table.

An introduction by Zaiden speaks to her editorial approach, “placing on equal footing the everyday and ordinary, the overlooked and disregarded, and the exceptional and acclaimed.”

Handwork can be ordered through Phaidon/Monacelli as well as other booksellers.