David Pye OBE (1914-1993) was Professor of Furniture Design at The Royal College of Art, UK, from 1964-1974. Pye was an accomplished wood-turner and carver, as well as an important writer on the theory of design and handcraft. The Nature and Aesthetics of Design, first published in 1964, and The Nature and Art of Workmanship, first published in 1968, were both hugely influential for the development of craft studies and design history. Ezra Shales is Professor in the History of Art department at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, USA. He teaches craft and design history and is the author of The Shape of Craft (2017) and Made in Newark: Cultivating Industrial Arts and Civic Identity in the Progressive Era (2010). He has also contributed chapters to publications such as Craft Economies (Bloomsbury, 2018) and The Ceramics Reader (Bloomsbury, 2017). He has written widely on contemporary artists and modernist ceramicists, and his work has appeared in exhibition catalogues and journals such as Journal of Design History and Journal of Modern Craft.
