A 1954 article finds Sam Maloof, maker of rocking chairs for presidents and MacArthur Foundation awardee, at the beginning of an illustrious career.

When Sherley Ashton wrote about Sam Maloof, now 93, in the June 1954 Craft Horizons, the master woodworker’s career had just begun. Even then he approached woodworking with the conviction that the designer and maker are inseparable. Notable for its elegant functionality, his work has been widely exhibited and was the subject of a retrospective at the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Renwick Gallery and is in its permanent collection as well as in those of many other museums.

Among the first to join the American Craft Council’s newly created College of Fellows, in 1975, Maloof was selected by his peers to receive the Council’s Gold Medal in 1988. He was the first craftsman to be awarded a MacArthur Foundation fellowship, in 1985. His legacy is assured with the Sam and Alfreda Maloof Foundation for the Arts and Crafts, which Maloof founded, with his first wife, the late Alfreda, in 1994. The Foundation is part of a sprawling compound in Alta Loma, California, where Maloof lives with his second wife, Beverly. It encompasses the original house he built in 1954—now a national historic landmark—stunning newer buildings, lush gardens and woodshops where he continues to work.

Maloof recently completed three new designs, all of which are on view until July 2 in a solo exhibition of his work at the Riverside Art Museum. He has often insisted that “no matter how beautiful a chair is, if it is not comfortable, it is not a good chair.” Presidents Carter, Reagan and Clinton have all owned his signature rockers and who better to recognize an ideal way to relax than leaders with the weight of the world on their shoulders? President Obama, is there a Maloof chair in your future?

Note: Sadly, we learned recently that Sam Maloof died May 21 at his home in Alta Loma, CA, following a brief illness.