Oscar P. Fitzgerald, PhD is a nationally known historian, author, lecturer, and consultant on American furniture from colonial times to the present. As a member of the faculty of the Smithsonian Institution/George Washington University Decorative Arts and Design History Masters Program, he teaches all the furniture classes He has shared his passion for furniture with audiences nationwide, including a number of certification seminars for appraisers. Recently, he presented a program on identifying Mid-century Modern furniture fakes at the annual conference of the International Society of Appraisers. His latest publication is the definitive American Furniture Designers: 1900-2020.
Here at last is the full and thoughtful treatment that Tommy Simpson’s prolific, six-decade career deserves. Simpson’s remarkable work defies categorization – drawing as it does from sculpture, poetry, painting, and even theater – yet its power may be attributed to a single, generous impulse: the wish to inspire joy. Oscar Fitzgerald’s sensitive portrait of Simpson and his work not only provides the self-proclaimed 'imaginist' in full, but it also challenges us to re-imagine the history of the Studio Furniture movement as a whole. -- Tripp Evans * Professor of American Material Culture at Wheaton College and author of The Importance of Being Furnished: Four Bachelors at Home, winner of the New England Society Book Award for Art and Photography *