Global InformationSven Ortquist information
Sven V. Ortquist (Apia, January 16, 1938 – Seattle, June 15, 2013) was a Samoan artist, wood-carver, and sculptor. Besides a carver, he was a boat builder, book illustrator, and painter. He has been awarded the Consortium for Pacific Arts and Cultures’ Heritage Award and the Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts.[1] He has been the Master Carver for the American Samoa Council on Arts, Culture and the Humanities. He has also been the resident artist at Jean P. Haydon Museum. Ortquist was the founder and first president of the Samoan Voyaging Society, Aiga Tautai o Samoa.[2] Ortquist has been an artist-in-residence at the territory’s largest college, American Samoa Community College and has also worked with a United Nations program teaching and constructing cheap plywood fishing boats for the poor.[3]
Ortquist was born in Western Samoa and is the son of a Swedish coconut trader, Gustav Adolph Ortquist, and a Samoan mother, Muimui Vale from Vailima.[3] His father first came from Sweden to Apia, Samoa in order to work as an accountant.
Ortquist was profiled in the documentary “The Samoan Heart” (1996).[3]
- ^ "SVEN ORTQUIST — PASSING ENDS AN ERA". Samoa News. June 20, 2013.
- ^ Shaffer, Robert J. (2000). American Samoa: 100 Years Under the United States Flag. Island Heritage. Page 207. ISBN 9780896103399.
- ^ a b c "Artist Carves Out Old Customs for Today's Samoans". Los Angeles Times. July 26, 2004.