Michael Coffey has been producing outstanding hand-crafted furniture for over thirty years, and is considered one of the greatest furniture makers working today. In the secondary market, his work has seen substantial appreciation, bringing strong prices in venues such as Christie’s and Sotheby’s.
Coffey was born and raised in New York City, with a six-year childhood stint in New Hope, Pennsylvania. From an early age he loved wood-carving, but he majored in psychology in college, and from 1953 to 1972 he was a clinical social worker in New York City. This excited the idealist in him, and also provided the income to support his woodworking practice. As his frustrations with bureaucracy rose and his hobby flourished, Coffey bought a house in Staten Island where he worked in his basement from 6:00 a.m. to noon as a woodworker and from noon into the evenings as a community organizer.
He was influenced by his East Coast contemporaries George Nakashima, Wendell Castle, Wharton Esherick, and Walker Reed, and was also an admirer of West Coast woodworker Sam Maloof. In particular, he was captivated by Jack Rogers Hopkins because, Mr. Coffey stated, “he had no limits.” But while his contemporaries inspired him, he resolved not to copy them and carved new paths using his innate ability to engineer the most structurally solid, uniquely sculptured furniture with flare and wit.
