Stephen Burks

Chicago native, Stephen Burks is one of the most recognized American industrial designers of his generation. Independently and through association with various non-profits, he has worked as a product development consultant in close collaboration with artisans and craftspeople in over ten countries on six continents.

He and his Brooklyn-based studio have been commissioned by many of the world’s leading design-driven brands to develop collections that engage hand production as a strategy for innovation including Cappellini, Dedon, MASS Design Group, Missoni, & Roche Bobois. His work has been exhibited internationally, including solo exhibitions at the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Museum of Art & Design, and the High Museum of Art. His works are in the permanent collections of the High Museum of Art, the National Museum of African American History & Culture, The Philadelphia Art Museum, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Burks is the only African-American to win the Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt National Design Award in Product Design and the only industrial designer to be awarded the prestigious Loeb Fellowship at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

His acclaimed traveling mid-career survey, Stephen Burks: Shelter in Place, will open at the Philadelphia Museum of Art November 18, 2023.