Bio:
David Orth, b. 1953, American studio furniture designer and sculptor working in wood & direct steel & bronze.
Orth was born in Texas, but lived with his expatriate family in Costa Rica & Guatemala during the 1960s & 1970s, moving to North Carolina as a teen, and then Chicago as an adult. Growing up in foreign countries among diverse communities exposed the young David to Spanish, Mayan, & European cultures and architecture, astonishing craftsmen that worked without electricity or store bought tools, and the International Modernism of larger Latin American cities.
Today Orth is one of Chicago's top furniture artists, an innovative educator, and a furniture industry designer. He has taught sculpture, interior architecture, and designed objects at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He is a member of the Chicago Furniture Designers' Association and served on its board of directors for five years.
Orth's furniture & sculpture has been featured in museums and galleries since the early 1980's. DAVID ORTH & VORTEX DESIGN: 4 GENERATIONS, ONE THREAD, a special focus of the Chicago Athenaeum's NEW CHICAGO FURNITURE VIII, featured Orth's work, apprenticeship program, the work of his graduates at Vortex Design, their own students and one of Orth's mentors, Mark Levin. FURNITURE OF THE 90'S featured Orth as one of 25 American furniture artists and was exhibited in New York at the Franklin Parrasch Gallery and in Houston at the American Society of Furniture Artists.
In college and graduate school, David took a long detour and received two degrees in philosophy. Surprisingly, this took him right into the heart of design and craft issues where he discovered the underlying connections between thinking, living, and building. Orth believes that art is an opportunity to dig down deep and understand something about life. For him, furniture - the sculpture we all live closest to - is a thread of connection between our ordinary, daily life and the insane immensity of the universe. Orth says he feels like a bloodhound - always on to the faint scent of something delicious and haunting. He gets a little unhinged by the whole thing and likes to paraphrase T.S.Eliot :
[Every design] is a step to the block, to the fire, down the sea's throat
Or to an illegible stone: and that is where we start.
We die with the dying:
See, they depart, and we go with them.
We are born with the dead:
See, they return, and bring us with them.David drags his clients along on this mostly enjoyable discovery process. The furniture and sculpture that result are broadly satisfying and unexpected.
Testimonials:
Orth’s art is amazing…overwhelming…the primal versus the ethereal. Rock and roll...the blues...arias.
- Jim Mangum, author of the Dos Cruces Trilogy)In its heyday, the cranky "New Art Examiner" ranked Orth's furniture among the "most sophisticated work, displaying an articulate, loving sense of craftsmanship drawn from the past ...sustained conceptually by...humor and personal vision....highly sensual...finely tuned...consistent...truly 'art furniture.
WBEZ Chicago Public Radio singled out Orth's tables at the Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture & Design observing that, "they really occupy that space between 'what is furniture?' and 'what is art?' and they don't in any way take advantage of cow spots or carved palm trees or some of the art furniture stuff we've gotten so used to. Really very, very beautiful work." (Victoria Lautman)
Lois B. Gries, a past president of the American Society of Interior Designers, Illinois Chapter, endorses Orth's approach: "I have worked with David Orth very successfully over some time. My clients are very impressed with the originality, timelessness and quality of his functional art. His work is uniquely his own style and works so well in any environment. I am easily able to communicate with him as to my clients' needs and he never fails to deliver a design that is beautiful, appropriate, and on time."
Marilyn Davis ASID, IIDA, of Marilyn Davis Interiors, whose own work has been documented in Chicago Home & Garden Magazine says:, "Professionalism is the operative word in working with David Orth. His follow-through and timeliness are admirable. As an interior designer, I appreciate the artistic integrity with which David adapts his designs to specific sites."
"Holy Cow."
- Kerry Aufderheide, Blue Table Sudio, Denver