ON VIEW

Innovative, organic designs characterize the work of New Hampshire furniture master Jere Osgood. Born in Staten Island, New York, in 1936, Osgood studied at the Rochester (New York) Institute of Technology and in Denmark. Osgood opened his own studio in 1957, and during the late 1950s and early 1960s he participated in exhibitions of the Museum of Contemporary Crafts in New York. Since then he has exhibited widely, showing his work under the auspices of Craft Today, the American Craft Museum, and the Smithsonian Institution, among others. Osgood has also served on the faculty at the Rochester Institute of Technology and at Boston University. In 1980 and again in 1988 he received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. In 1993 Osgood was named a fellow of the American Craft Council. Examples of his work may be seen in the collections of the American Craft Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Johnson Collection (Washington, DC), and the Renwick Collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

The Currier's Spring Desk is one of Osgood's signature pieces. Inspired by the forms of lutes and mandolins as well as natural tree growth, the artist made his first elliptical desks in the late 1960s. The Currier desk consists of a graceful bowed case supported on four subtly curved legs. Dispensing with the boxy shape of traditional desk forms, the piece appears at first glance to be more sculptural than functional. Exotic woods including bubinga and wenge reinforce its purely visual appeal. Yet if one rolls back the curving front panel, a conventional array of drawers and compartments appears, reassuring the viewer as to the desk's function and ultimate usefulness.

Spring Desk exemplifies Osgood's mastery of lamination, a means of binding thin layers of wood in a process similar to that used to make industrial plywood. A pioneer in introducing this technique to studio furniture construction, Osgood developed a system of tapering laminates that effectively fuses strength and artistic flexibility. Applied in the construction of Spring Desk's legs, Osgood's lamination technique reinforces the work's structural integrity while permitting fluid, natural-seeming contours.

The elliptical shape of Spring Desk's outer shell is based on construction techniques seen not only in musical instruments but also in boat and barrel making. Fashioning individual curved staves that he has veneered in advance, Osgood joins them to arrive at a form that is organic in feeling yet clearly linked to craft traditions. Complementing the legs of the desk, the shell likewise combines the artist's respect for nature with a strong sense of focused craftsmanship.

The Currier purchased Spring Desk from the artist in 1997. A major example of New Hampshire contemporary furniture, it is ironically one of the few pieces by Osgood on display in a New Hampshire collection. Osgood is well known nationally, and as demand among private collectors for his work is high, much of it has left the state.

VSD


REFERENCES

Rick Mastelli and John Kelsey, eds. Tradition in Contemporary Furniture. Free Union, VA: Furniture Society, 2001.

Rosanne Somerson. "Perfect Sweep." American Craft 45, no. 3 (June-July 1985): 30-34.