Anyone who thinks that all the major figures of postwar American furniture have been accounted for should think again, and think hard about the American Studio Furniture movement. Rizzoli in November will publish “Modern Americana: Studio Furniture from High Craft to High Glam,” an ambitious survey of 26 furniture makers, designers, and decorators.

Edited by Todd Merrill, a well-known dealer in postwar American furniture, and Julie V. Iovine, editor of the Architect’s Newspaper, “Modern Americana” hits shelves at a time of renewed interest in American studio furniture among auction houses, galleries, museums, and collectors.

Prices for designers such as top-tier George Nakashima (1905-90) and Paul Evans (1931­-87) remain high. Examples of Nakashima furniture regularly sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars at auction. In November, a Paul Evans metal-front cabinet from 1960 sold at Sotheby’s for $157,000, a record for the designer.

At the same time, interest in a number of lesser-known furniture makers is increasing as their designs appear on the secondary market. “Modern Americana” may help to straighten the record, and restore a couple of reputations along the way. Move over, Nakashima: The roster of postwar American furniture makers continues to grow.

“This is the only undocumented period left in American furniture,” Mr. Merrill, who owns a high-end antiques store in NoHo that bears his name, said. “You could graduate from any design school in the country and you might not know who the biggest furniture designers were 20 years ago. They’ve just vanished.”

“Modern Americana” follows the movement from its beginning at the 1940 New York World’s Fair, when furniture maker Wharton Esherick (1887-1970) exhibited a startlingly Cubist-like, heavy timber spiral staircase he had built a decade earlier at his home in Paoli, Pa. Esherick’s staircase is considered one of the masterpieces of studio craft.

Esherick set a standard for studio furniture craftsmen to come: He designed each piece individually, working by hand to free them from the wood. “It’s a continuation of the American tradition of the itinerant cabinet maker who makes one-of-a-kind pieces of furniture for wealthy clients as opposed to the manufactured furniture that was made in this country after World War II by people like Herman Miller,” Mr. Merrill said.

Following his death, Esherick fell into obscurity, a fate that would befall more than a few studio craftsmen. But of late, his pieces have been revived at auction. In 2006, the Museum of Fine Arts acquired a 1927 screen by Esherick for $312,000.

“One of the prevailing trends in the postwar market is this exciting idea of finding new figures and introducing them to the public,” the head of the 20th-century design department at Sotheby’s, James Zemaitis, said. “Dealers and auction people like myself will always be going for that forgotten figure.”

Such is the career arc of California designer Jack Rogers Hopkins (1920-2006). Pieces by Hopkins, who worked in the slow method of stack-laminating, or stacking, thin layers of hardwood mahogany, black walnut, cherry, and maple into free-form, curvilinear, and altogether edgeless furniture, are increasingly sought after.

Several examples of Hopkins’s work can be found at Todd Merrill Antiques, including a 1970s lounge chair, which, according to “Modern Americana,” was built for a client who wanted a lamp, bookcase, ottoman, and armrest rolled into one piece of furniture. The chair, which resembles a piece of driftwood, is priced at an estimated $50,000.

“Sometimes it takes the passing of a generation or two for these things to enter the marketplace and get well known,” Museum of Fine Arts senior curator of decorative arts and sculpture Gerry Ward said of Hopkins’s work, an example of which was included in the museum’s 2003 exhibition “The Maker’s Hand: American Studio Furniture.”

Or consider the case of Phillip Lloyd Powell (1919-2008). While he was not as well known as Paul Evans, his onetime business partner, Powell’s sinuously molded and contoured furniture pieces are increasingly prized by collectors and dealers.

As Evans spent the late 1960s turning out a series of elaborate sculpted steel and bronze cabinet front pieces, Powell stuck close to the grain. “Powell takes the wood and works the knots and imperfections into an almost surreal landscape,” Mr. Merrill said. He was referring to a 96-inch-tall walnut armoire with painted silver-leaf sides. The piece is priced at $100,000.

The piece, which dates to the mid-1960s and appears in “Modern Americana,” will also be featured in an upcoming show of Studio Craft furniture scheduled to run from October 28 to November 30 at the Todd Merrill Gallery. The show will feature works by all 26 designers in “Modern Americana.”

Powell never came close to achieving the fame of his former partner or Nakashima, his neighbor in the town of New Hope, Pa. But that did not seem to bother the designer, whose life was an apparent act of running against expectations, including those of his own Studio Craft peers.

“Powell and Nakashima shared the same wood supplier, and Powell, being a sort of eccentric hippie-type, would take the bad wood off the truck after Nakashima got first picks,” Mr. Merrill said. “Powell got the leftovers, but that was part of his art.”

Todd Merrill Antiques & Associates, 65 Bleecker St., between Broadway and Lafayette Street, 212-673-0531.