Larry Robinson’s Art Nouveau Guitar

Larry Robinson is the most prominent inlay artist in the United States. He’s the author of “The Art of Inlay” and is currently writing a new book about the best contemporary inlay.

“Larry Robinson’s work truly transcends materials and technique to become pure art”

Rick Turner, guitar builder & Bass Player columnist

The Nouveau Guitar

Inlay art from the back of the Nouveau Guitar

Larry Robinson’s commentary on his Nouveau Guitar

“This instrument took form over a period of two years, and is the result of my admiration of the Art Nouveau period, combined with a need to flesh out untried techniques and a desire to collaborate with artists in other fields.  I commissioned the Santa Cruz Guitar Co. to build the guitar using my Brazilian rosewood, Michael Coy to paint the John Waterhouse inspired scene on the top, and David Giulietti to engrave the silver rosette ring.  The nature theme reiterates the Nouveau artists’ treatment of water, earth and air on all the surfaces.”

Detail from fingerboard of Nouveau Guitar

Larry Robinson’s artistic property rights

On my way south from Seattle last week, I stopped in Portland to visit my friend and Art Law mentor Leonard DuBoff. I am changing my company’s – and this site’s – name from MiArtStudio.com to Inlay-Arts.com. The DuBoff Law Group is taking care of the legal work for the new company.

My son Kenneth offered to design a biz card and selected one of Larry Robinson’s inlay designs as the featured motif. So I called Larry Robinson to ask for his permission, which he generously granted. [I've placed images of our new card at the end of this post - KD]

Larry Robinson with two of his inlay art guitars

I mentioned that I really enjoyed seeing his “00 Nouveau” art guitar at the “Music Makers” exhibit curated by Ervin Somogyi. He offered to send some photos and a comment for this Inlay-Arts.com blog post [which he promptly did - see above - kd]. This is the first of a series on three of his favorite inlay art masterpieces: The Nouveau Guitar; The Lindisfarne Project and The China Guitar.

Here are images of the biz card that Kenneth Dodge designed for Inlay-Arts.com:

New Inlay-Arts.com biz card - designed by Kenneth Dodge

Biz card back showing Larry Robinson's brilliant inlay art