James Krenov: Leave Fingerprints

by Brendan Bernhardt Gaffney

James Krenov was a highly influential woodworking writer and teacher whose lyrical writing about woodworking and craft expressed in classic books such as The Impractical Cabinetmaker and A Cabinetmaker’s Notebook, has inspired many woodworkers since its publication in the seventies. Nowadays he is perhaps best known for the Krenov School, the College of the Redwoods Fine Woodworking Program, now renamed in his honor. Krenov emphasized an approach that wedded formal technique with creative expression free from preconceptions — a philosophy that resonated with its Seventies audience and also continues to resonate today with makers all over the world.

Our friend Brendan Berhardt Gaffney, a graduate of the Krenov program and a former TFWW staff member, spent years of research on this book, the first comprehensive biography of Krenov.

Leave Fingerprints is rich with stories and artifacts from Krenov’s life, giving a full portrait of a complex figure in his artistic, historic and social context. Every page offers something intriguing – a sketch of furniture, a copied advertisement for a Krenov book, a clipping from a Swedish newspaper (Stockholm just one of many places Krenov called home over the course of his life), a reference letter sent to College of the Redwoods – which makes the book especially engaging. Leave Fingerprints includes a fully gallery of Krenov’s work.

290 pages. 9” x 11 ½”..Hardcover. Printed on heavy 80 coated matte paper for crisp text and superior color reproduction, with pages that are sewn and taped to create a permanent binding, then attached to cloth-covered boards and wrapped in a thick and durable dust jacket.

Pages: 290
Binding: Hard Cover
Publisher: Lost Art Press