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Vivian Beer

She // Her // Hers

Furniture Designer and Maker

Manchester, New Hampshire

Photo of Vivian Beer.

Photo by Jenny Ogborn, courtesy of Lincoln Global Inc.

Vivian Beer is a furniture designer/maker based in New England. Her sleek, abstracted metal and concrete furniture combines the aesthetic sensibilities of contemporary design, craft, and sculpture to create objects that alter viewers’ expectations of and interface with the domestic landscape. With a strong foundation in contemporary furniture design, her research into the history of American industry, architecture, and transportation adds intellectual rigor and specificity to her work. Her Infrastructure, Streamline and Anchored Candy series are physical manifestations of the cultural and industrial history of her materials even as they serve as intellectual bridges for their users, bringing them to a new way of conceiving the built world through a luxurious deployment of the senses.Her work is included in the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, MFA Boston, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Museum of Arts and Design and the cities of Portland ME, Arlington VA and Cambridge MA. She holds an MFA from Cranbrook Academy and received their 2016 Alumni Achievement Award. Beer has won numerous awards and residencies including the John D. Mineck Furniture Fellowship, Penland School of crafts Residency, Wingate Artist Residency, Museum of Glass, Pilchuck and a Research Fellowship at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.

Donor -This award is generously supported by the Windgate Foundation.

This artist page was last updated on: 01.04.2025

Artwork by Vivian Beerr.

Dressed Up and Pinned by Vivian Beer, 2016. Formed and fabricated steel, stainless steel and automotive finish, public art collection of Arlington, VA.

Photo courtesy of the artist.

Artwork by Vivan Beer.

Slither.walk.fly by Vivian Beer, 2008. Hot formed and fabricated steel and automotive paint. collection of Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC.

Photo courtesy of the artist.

Artwork by Vivian Beer.

Desert Impressions Bench by Vivan Beer, 2015. cast bronze made from molds of cracked desert texture during Desert Design Lab project.

Photo courtesy of the artist.