Meet the Maker: Guy Rabut

by Tim Olsen

Originally published in American Lutherie #32, 1992 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Three, 2004



On a recent trip to New York, I had the good fortune to visit Guy Rabut in his uptown Manhattan apartment above a small grocery store. We sat in his tiny shop, which was piled high with cardboard boxes in anticipation of Guy’s imminent move into a freshly renovated space in Carnegie Hall. He made the move in October, and now shares this classy address with two violin dealers, Charles Rudig and Fred Oster, and Michael Yeats, a bow maker. Artifacts of wide-ranging artistic sensitivities surrounded us, including Northwest coastal Indian carvings which Guy made during a summer seminar with renowned artist Bill Reed; his intriguing logo in which the proper curves of a violin appear in a cubist jumble; a glass case holding a few of his beautiful finished fiddles; and a pine mock-up of a banjo he plans to build someday.

Guy Rabut is one of the Guild’s most faithful members. The May ’74 issue of the GAL Newsletter listed him as a new member, and he hasn’t missed a day since. He is also a member of the American Federation of Violin and Bow Makers.