"Seven Roses" plant stand

This delicately carved and painted cherrywood plant stand—with its abstracted, geometricized support elements resembling tendril-like plant forms—exemplifies Hurwitz’s renowned work in carved wood and bentwood furniture. It also reflects the artist’s wide-ranging interests in design sources from the past, including British Arts & Crafts, the Wiener Werkstätte, and Japanese prints and brush painting.


Hurwitz began making furniture in the late 1970s, becoming a prominent figure within the 1990s American studio furniture movement, forming part of a new generation of makers that directly followed studio furniture stalwarts such as Wharton Esherick, Wendell Castle, and Sam Maloof.


With its combination of self-conscious historical design references, infused with a playful balance of wit and irony, Hurwitz’s work in the 1990s represented a high-water mark period for American studio furniture, and reflected shared sensibilities with other key makers within the field, such as John Cederquist and Garry Knox Bennett.