Michael Hurwitz has been making studio furniture for forty-five years, since earning his BFA from Boston University’s Program in Artisanry in 1979. His work is included in several public collections, including the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, MA, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA, the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Washington, DC and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NY. He has received numerous grants and awards including fellowships from the Massachusetts Endowment for the Arts, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, Tiffany Foundation, Pew Charitable Trust, the Japan Foundation, and the US-Japan Friendship Commission. His recent honors include becoming Fellow of the American Craft Council, a Montgomery Fellow of Dartmouth College, and receiving a Masters of the Medium Award from the Renwick Alliance and a Visionary Artist Award from the Smithsonian Museum.
Hurwitz strives to make furniture that is timeless, elegant, and respectful of the nature of the materials. Toward that end he has committed to a way of working that includes generating a great quantity of studies, mock-ups and experiments with materials for most new work. Currently he has intensified his career-long focus on allowing the physical structure of the work to define its presence. The interest in maximizing the strength-to-weight ratio and searching for the place where that balance exists most harmoniously continues to be a primary directive for him.
For Hurwitz, the commitment to the careful making of an object is an important part of the work’s identity. He believes that fine craftsmanship includes more than the knowledge of materials and the experience of practice— it also asks that you enter into empathy with the material, and to be fully present and responsive within that union. His hope is that this spirit is embodied in the work and is palpable for the viewer.
Download his bio and resume here.