About Lionel Murphy
Lionel Murphy
I started making things from metal and wood in my grandfather’s engineering shop at the age of 6. At high school, between lessons in the afternoon, I spent time at my friend’s father’s woodworking shop, eventually making my first guitar — a wood bodied electric bass. My passion for both art and engineering led to my pursuing Industrial Design in college, graduating in the mid-70’s in South Africa.
After college, I moved over into advertising, working through the 1980’s and 90’s first as an Art Director and then as a Creative Director with some of the top agencies, BBDO, Young & Rubicam, and McCann Erickson. Outside of work, I made furniture as a way of keeping the process of creating in 3 dimensions alive for me. By 1990, back in Zimbabwe, my wife and I had opened a video production company, Ideas at Work, producing commercials for TV, stop frame animation, and documentaries. A large studio with a workshop for the business allowed me to continue making furniture in my spare time. Gradually, I gained a devoted local following and began selling pieces for export to Britain, France, and the United States.
With our immigration to the United States in 2014, my obsession with furniture design and making led to my pursuing it full time. The beauty of African timbers, their natural shapes and strength, has influenced the form of many of my pieces. Working in California now, I’m excited by the splendid array of local and exotic woods. Through the meeting of these pre-existing natural forms and my industrial design training and aesthetic, my design style is continually evolving.