Design Gurus Look West

When Figure Painting asked James Zemaitis, head of 20th-century design at Sotheby's, what he was grateful to have seen transpire in his particular corner of the market this year, he said that he was happy to see furniture made by California artisans in the '60s, '70s, and '80s finally get its due at auction and in galleries like Reform in Los Angeles and Todd Merrill Antiques in New York. "There is a world of woodworking giants out there beyond the New Hope forests of Nakashima. Sam Maloof, Art "Espenet" Carpenter, J.B. Blunk, Jack Rogers Hopkins...these Golden State pioneers were forgotten until recently," Zemaitis wrote in an e-mail. Will these West Coast craftsmen be the next mid-century French? We'll have to wait for 2008....