FILTER RESULTS × Close
by Artist (2042)
by Century (5)
by Country (6)
by Object Type (140)
by Period (7)
Skip to Content
NEHMA logo
Showing 4770 of 5751

Print this page
Image of A Hard Day's Work

David Furman

American, b. 1945

A Hard Day's Work
2012

Earthenware
6 x 10.75 x 13 in.
Gift of the Nora Eccles Treadwell Foundation
2014.1

David Furman creates hyperrealistic and trompe l’oeil sculptures of ordinary items that provoke the illusion of seeing actual objects in the world, such as the toolbox in A Hard Day’s Work. In fact, each object is skillfully crafted in low-fire ball-and-talc clay. Along with carefully crafted forms and textures, Furman uses underglazes, glazes, lusters, and enamels to help foster the illusions. He says this ceramic tool box is an homage to his artist grandfather, Jacob, from whom he inherited his craftsman’s gene, and probably his obsessive tendencies. “On any given day, what garage, studio, or workshop does not have a pile of well-used tools on the workbench, waiting to be used or put away?”

Born in Seattle, David Furman attended the University of Oregon in Portland, where he received his BA in 1969, and the University of Washington for his MFA in 1972. He was professor of art at both Pitzer College (1973–2007) and Claremont Graduate School in Claremont, California. In 1975 he was visiting professor of art at both Otis Art Institute of Parsons School of Design, Los Angeles, and California State University, Los Angeles, in 1976. His repertoire is vast: miniature room vignettes, small-scale contemporary ruins, trompe l’oeil works, composite-vegetable teapots and wooden-mannequin-based scenarios displaying human emotions. For more than forty years, Furman has expressed his ideas, experiences, and perceptions in clay through irony, empathy, and humor.

Billie Sessions, PhD

Exhibition List
This object was included in the following exhibitions:

Also found in
Click a portfolio name to view all the objects in that portfolio
This object is a member of the following portfolios:
Thumbnail image of Unearthed | The NEHMA Ceramics Collection & The Woman Behind It
Unearthed | The NEHMA Ceramics Collection & The Woman Behind It
Thumbnail image of Ceramics
Ceramics
Thumbnail image of Unearthed | 1990s and Beyond
Unearthed | 1990s and Beyond

Your current search criteria is: All Objects records.





This site facilitates access to the art and artifact collections by providing digitally searchable records for thousands objects. The information on these pages is not definitive or comprehensive. We are regularly adding artworks and updating research online. We welcome your comments.