Despite Bob Timberlake’s international career as an artist and furniture designer, he has never strayed far from his roots.

Raised in the Lexington, NC, area, where both he and his wife trace their families back to the 1740s, he attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. After graduation, he returned to the area to work in several family businesses before a Life magazine article on Andrew Wyeth turned his life around.

Convinced that art was where his future lay, in 1970 he started painting scenes of the rural countryside around him; realistic depictions that would later be exhibited in galleries and museums throughout the United States.

Yet, despite his fame, he never forgot his love of woodworking. “I had an interest in furniture even way back. I won my first national artistic award [the 1952 Ford Motor Co. industrial arts award] for a piece of furniture I built and painted,” Timberlake says. “We are still today using designs from that chest in our furniture. It was a Pennsylvania Dutch dowry chest, large, 5 feet long, 30 inches high and about 30 inches deep, and hand-painted all over.”

Timberlake credits Fred Carver, a master craftsman, for his influence in making the World of Bob Timberlake collection a success. “The furniture, the finishes, his love for cherry, his love for wood in general…a lot of it rubbed off, but not as much as I had wished. He lived long enough to see the fruition (the huge success of the Timberlake line).”

In addition to his success in the furniture industry, Timberlake has also designed four U.S. postage stamps and licensed home textiles and accessories, outdoor gear and log homes. Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan honored him for his work with Keep America Beautiful and the American Forestry Assn. lauded him for “Enhancing Public Appreciation of America’s Natural Resources through Art.” His efforts on behalf of North Carolina charities are well-known, including the donation of a print release, “Jonquils,” that along with other limited-edition reproductions, raised $2 million for cancer research at Duke Medical Center.

Although Timberlake continues to preside over Bob Timberlake Inc. from his home in Lexington, the day-to-day operations have been turned over to his son Dan.