The remarkable Paul Evans (20 May 1931 – 7 March 1987) was a talented American furniture designer, sculptor, and artist, who is renowned for his contributions to American furniture design and the American craft Movement of the 1970s. His collaboration with the powerful American manufacturer Directional Furniture was also a central point of his career.

His creations of metal sculpted furniture are truly outstanding. He studied at the Cranbrook Academy of Art and later settled in New Hope, Pennsylvania, where he shared a showroom with woodworker Phillip Lloyd Powell.

Paul Evans was born Newtown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. He studied at several notorious institutions including the Philadelphia Textile Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1950), the Rochester Institute of Technology, the School for American Craftsmen, the Rochester, New York (1950), and the Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan (1952).

In 1950s, Evans began to create copper chests and sculpt steel-front cabinets. His incredible designs were showcased in 1961 at America House, an exhibition held at the Museum of Contemporary Crafts in New York (now known as the Museum of Arts & Design). In 1964, Evans became a featured designer for the furniture manufacturer Directional Furniture.

With Directional Furniture, Paul Evans introduced several collections of exclusive, unique and limited edition furniture lines, such as Argente series, Sculpted Bronze series, Sculptured and Painted Steel, Patchwork Copper, Pewter and Brass, and the popular Cityscape series.

Evans pieces were frequently signed, and some of the custom-made items have a signature and a date. Paul Evans’ combination of handcraft and technology was visionary and anticipated the limited-edition contemporary artistic furniture. The artist’s relationship with Directional Furniture set a unique standard for creative manufacture by insisting every piece should be made by hand, finished by hand, supervised by the artist at each step of production, one piece at a time, reaching an unbeatable quality level.

Stay with us to find out more about the leagcy of Paul Evans and the best of design and craftsmanship.

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