ABOUT THE ARTIST
Born in Iowa City in 1944, David Ellsworths’s first experience with the lathe was in woodshop class at age 14. He continued turning wood through high school, then spent three years in the military and eight years in college studying architecture, drawing, and sculpture. He earned an MFA in sculpture from the University of Colorado in 1973. He started the woodworking program at the Anderson Ranch Arts Center in 1974, and the following year opened his first private woodturning studio in Boulder. It was during the mid-70’s that David designed a series of bent turning tools and developed the methods required for turning the thin-walled forms for which he is world-renowned. His first article, “Hollowed Turning”, appeared in 1979 in Fine Woodworking Magazine. Since then, he has published over fifty articles.
David is the founder of the American Association of Woodturners, of which he was president from 1986 through’91, and is also its first Honorary Lifetime Member. He currently has a home and studio in Bucks County, PA, where he operates the Ellsworth School of Woodturning. His works have been included in the permanent collections of twenty museums. He has received numerous fellowship grants, including the National Endowment for the Arts and the Pennsylvania Council for the Arts.
In 2006, he was Visiting Professor at the Rhode Island School of Design.
ABOUT THE WORK
David Ellsworth believes the process of vessel-making should be one in which ”the heart, not the head, is in charge. The vessel is the language of the self, expressed, but not overwhelmed by, one’s material or techniques.” Of his work, he says, ”My intent as an artist is to translate thought into form and to create singular statements that evolve through the integration of the material of wood with the process of turning. I prefer to work in series where I can explore ideas, challenge concepts, and expand the dimension of my work into a broad visual language. I consider the skill of my craft to be the foundation from which my artwork has evolved, and that the identity of each object is a glimmer of the collective body of my life’s work.”
SELECTED MUSEUM COLLECTIONS
Metropolitan Museum of Art – New York City, NY
Philadelphia Art Museum – Philadelphia, PA
Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institute – Washington, DC
The White House – Washington, DC
Mint Museum- Charlotte, NC
Museum of Arts and Design – New York, NY
Los Angeles County Museum of Art – Los Angeles, CA
Museum of Fine Arts – Boston, MA
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2006 Coral Springs Museum of Art - “International Woodturners”, Coral Springs, FL.
Craft Council of Ireland – “Tracing the Line”. Castle Yard, Kilkenny, Ireland.
Kentucky Museum of Art. “Turning 20 – Still Evolving”. Louisville, KY
Rochester Art Center – “Contemporary American Woodturning”, Rochester, MN
2005 Mobile Museum of Art – “The Bohlen Collection,” Mobile, AL
2004 Patina Gallery, Santa Fe, NM – “Revolutionary Turns”
2003 Patina Gallery, Santa Fe, NM – “One Step Back, Two Steps Forward”
1999 Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco – “Contemporary Works From the Saxe Collection”
