NEW LEBANON, NY.- The Shaker Museum│Mount Lebanon will be featured in a new book, Shaker: Function, Purity, Perfection, to accompany an all-Shaker exhibit at the prestigious European Fine Art Fair in Maastricht, The Netherlands in March. The exhibit is being organized by art dealer Philippe Ségalot and Paris furniture dealer François Laffanour. The accompanying book will be published this month by Assouline Publishing.

Mr. Ségalot spearheaded the project. Celebrated for his work in contemporary art, he first became interested in Shaker design and began collecting Shaker objects eight years ago. He approached the Museum earlier this year about borrowing collection items to add to the privately-owned objects to be exhibited at the Maastricht Fair, which runs from March 13 to 22, 2015, and enlisted the Museum’s help in producing the new companion book on Shaker furniture.

The 144-page hardcover book will feature extensive new photography and information about the items that will be in the exhibit, as well as three introductory essays - “A Brief History of the Shakers” by Museum President David Stocks, “On Shaker Furniture” by Director of Collections and Research Jerry Grant, and “The Influences of Shaker Furniture on Twentieth-Century Furniture” by renowned designer and retailer Sir Terence Conran. Featured are twenty-eight essential pieces that highlight the defining elements of Shaker design and demonstrate a dedication to perfection.

“The Shaker exhibit at the Maastricht Art Fair and this new book from Assouline will introduce Shaker design and Shaker history to a new audience from Europe and around the world,” said Mr. Stocks. “This project helps further the Museum’s mission, which is to engage and inspire local, national and global audiences by telling the story of the American Shakers. We are particularly excited to be working with Philippe Ségalot, who frames the topic of Shaker in a new and fresh way. And to have Sir Conran weigh in on Shaker design helps put Shaker furniture in the larger perspective of Modernism.”

Mr. Ségalot offered his reasons for undertaking this project. "I have always defended publicly the artists I believed in and thought now was the time to share my private passion for Shaker Design. This project would not have been the same without the expertise, the vision and the generosity of Museum board chair Jeffrey Daly, David Stocks and Jerry Grant; I can’t thank them enough for their priceless collaboration,” he said.

The Maastricht exhibit is the second of a number of the Museum’s recent collaborations designed to showcase its vast collections. Currently, hundreds of items from the Museum’s collections are on view at the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine, for the exhibition The Shakers: From Mount Lebanon to the World, and an accompanying catalog of the same name was published by Skira Rizzoli in July 2014.

Shaker: Function, Purity, Perfection is available for pre-order through the museum’s online store for $50.

The Shaker Museum | Mount Lebanon, located in New Lebanon, Columbia County, New York, is dedicated to engaging and inspiring local, national, and global audiences by telling the story of the American Shakers. The museum’s collections span over 60,000 objects and it stewards the North Family historic site at Mount Lebanon, a National Historic Landmark.