500 Knives: Celebrating Traditional & Innovative Designs by Lark Books

Synopsis

Contemporary knifemakers are far more daring than their counterparts from as recently as a generation ago: they’ve become masters of new techniques and technologies, experts in reinterpreting form and function to create sculptural works of art. Flip through this amazing on-the-page gallery, and you’ll discover a dizzying array of styles, from ones that demonstrate simple elegance to others that feature over-the-top embellishment. The collection includes daggers, kitchen knives, hunting knives, combat and folding knives, switchblades, multi-blades, swords, axes, tomahawks, and even a pistol-knife—all honed with fine creative vision.

The international roster of artists includes:

Don Hanson - Tim Hancock - Rebecca Sheer - Chantal Gilbert - Anders Hogstrom - Vince Evans - Frankie Flood - Johan Gustafsson - Allen Elishewitz - Jot Singh Khalsa - Wendy Yothers - and more!

Biography

JOHN L. JENSEN has been promoting the knife as a creative art form for more than 15 years. He has been featured in more than 60 national and international publications. In 2005, his work was included in Metalsmith magazine’s annual juried competition, Exhibition in Print. Jensen has participated in numerous gallery shows, including Hammer and Hand: Contemporary American Metal at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan; The Influence of Rock and Roll at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, Ohio; and California Art Metal Now at the Blue Room Gallery in San Francisco, California. Jensen regularly conducts workshops around the country, and in 2007 he curated the first museum show of modern art knives at the National Ornamental Metals Museum in Memphis, Tennessee.