Jere Osgood

Who is Jere Osgood?

Jere Osgood is a leading studio furniture maker and noted teacher of furniture and woodworking. He taught for many years in the Program in Artisanry at the Boston University.

Jere Osgood was born and raised in Staten Island, New York. He studied architecture at the University of Illinois but left after two years to pursue furniture design and fabrication. Thereafter, he enrolled at the School of American Craftsmen at Rochester Institute of Technology and learned furniture making under Tage Frid. Osgood was also influenced by the work of Wharton Esherick. Osgood seemed to have a natural aptitude for furniture. He completed the four-year program in about two years, receiving his B.F.A. in 1960. He supported himself while in school by fabricating and selling small wood objects of his own design. Like other American furniture makers, Osgood was very interested in the modern furniture being made in Scandinavia. He studied in Denmark in 1960-61.

On his return the United States, Osgood established a studio in New Milford, Connecticut, where he made small objects. In the late 1960s he began to make large projects and explored different techniques of laminating wood.