David Harber and Michael Derrig Present 'A Celebration of Art in the Garden'

The David Harber studio in Oxfordshire, England, is bringing its outdoor sculptures to East Hampton this summer in collaboration with landscape architect Michael Derrig, the owner and founder of Landscape Details.

Derrig will host five David Harber works in an exhibition titled “A Celebration of Art in the Garden,” set in his personal gardens. It runs from June 28 through August 31, every other Saturday by appointment.

Lior Kristal, the studio’s creative director, will journey across the pond to give a private tour of the display this Saturday. During an interview last week over Zoom, Kristal shared the studio’s history and its design approach.

The studio regards outdoor sculptures not as mere ornaments in the garden, he explained, but as jewel-like objects that add to the tranquility and sanctuary that a garden provides.

“That’s what a garden does,” Kristal said. “In my own personal garden, I’m at peace.”

He said sculpture can “bring about a sense of well-being, sense of intrigue. It can draw you to the garden. It can draw you to a hidden place. It can be integrated in the horticulture.”

David Harber — the man, not the studio — created his first sundial 30 years ago.

“It was very much something that he was drawn to out of pure curiosity and passion,” Kristal said. “He didn’t know what it was, but he was drawn to it. It was something inherent in him, I believe.”

Harber went on to Oxford University, where he studied books and diagrams on armillary spheres — a model of celestial bodies centered on the Earth or the Sun.

“He started creating this object by himself, out of metal — bronze — and he started shaping it,” Kristal said.

Harber worked on it outside his cottage, where the actor Jeremy Irons regularly walked by. One day Irons asked what Harber was working on, and Harber explained it was an armillary sphere. The following day, Irons returned and asked Harber how much he wanted for it. Harber agreed to sell it for three months’ rent, and that is how his sundial business started.

Then it evolved into water features, sculptures and many other objects for the garden, Kristal said.

Kristal joined the studio two years ago, initially as design director, but he said he “very quickly started integrating and annoying people in every single corner of the business as a creative director should.”

His background is in fine art sculpture, and he earned a master’s in design from the Royal College of Art in London.

“I went into different industries. So always about material, always about form, always about function,” he said. “It was always the sculptural roots that gave me the essence of who I am, the ability to understand form and proportion. So it’s really a full-circle life cycle for me.”

David Harber, the studio, does everything in-house: “Our workshops are based in Oxfordshire. The design part of it’s here too,” Kristal said. “The engineering part’s here, the customer service part’s here, the operations is here. Every single aspect’s here.”

The team includes about 37 people, a relatively “small village to create these incredible pieces of work.”

He said doing everything in-house and having a team effort behind every single thing the studio creates pushes the boundaries, as opposed to only having design capacity and subcontracting out the manufacturing.

“There are some absolute, beautiful craftspeople here who create some exquisite work, and I think that’s what’s so special about this place,” he said.

Harber and Lior come up with the concepts behind each design and strive to create three new products for the David Harber signature collection each year.

“The best times for David and I are when we are together and we are sitting in a room and we don’t want anyone disturbing us,” Kristal said. “And we have this huge roll of tracing paper. We stream it across the desk, and with our pens and pencils, we’re just scribbling and scribbling and coming up with ideas. … Some are nonsensical. Some are absolute gems.”

He said it’s a constant conversation of ideas — how it could be produced, what it could do. “And then suddenly there’s a spark, and then something’s born.”

Some days that spark doesn’t come after many hours, and they just want to go home, he admitted.

“What’s really important, in my view, is to have the capacity to enjoy that process and trust that process,” he said.

The signature collection is accessible to anyone, though some designs are limited editions, such as “Flo,” a work that will debut in “A Celebration of Art in the Garden” and is limited to 25 pieces.

“That’s one of our core collection pieces. It’s one of mine, and we’re very proud of it,” Kristal said.

“Flo” will be the studio’s first product featuring a new finishing process they have implemented called “hot patination finish.”

The sculpture’s contours have 24-karat gold gilding. Gilding is known as an endangered craft in the United Kingdom, Kristal noted. The studio has brought in gilders — including a third-generation sign-maker now teaching the craft to his daughter — and has fostered the training of other craftspeople as well.

Because David Harber works with light, form and shadow, gold lends itself to the studio’s approach.

“Gold is a natural material,” Kristal said. “I mean, we pull it out of the ground and it still shines. So it’s an extremely durable surface that can be used within our sculptures, and we try our best to continue using it.”

Also on display in East Hampton is the garden sphere “Mantle II,” with a bronze verdigris finish and a 24-karat gold interior.

“When it’s in an outdoor environment, an overcast day, this thing just glows,” Kristal said.

A low-voltage LED is included within the sculpture, not to be a lamp, but to accentuate the gold in the evening, he noted.

“Dark Planet,” a riverstone sphere, also includes a light.

“As evening comes, it glows through in between each of the cracks,” he said.

David Harber designs are customizable to meet clients’ desires, adjusting shapes, scale and materials, and the studio does bespoke commissions as well.

Two years ago, David Harber launched “Terra,” a sculptural wall panel, in Palm Beach. It was intended to be mounted to a wall.

“From that launch, we’ve only sold one of those pieces as it was intended to be on a wall, but I’ve done about six different customized pieces based off the concept,” Kristal said.

One client asked for it to be designed for ceiling mounting, and others had various requests.

“It’s gone from different scales and different shapes and different sizes, and it’s been really interesting,” Kristal said. “So I think that if you have an imagination and you’re willing to get in a conversation, that’s the beginning of how we go about it. It’s about that conversation, and it’s about exploring and just being curious and going forth and trying to figure out new stuff. And I think that’s the best way that these customization jobs do work.”

Predominantly, the studio designs for the outdoors, with material choices and finishes derived from and inspired by natural surroundings. Among the materials commonly used are stone, slate, bronze, gold leaf and highly reflective marine grade 316 stainless steel.

Kristal likes how a reflective sculpture can be a focal point that draws a garden visitor to it from a distance. “But as you walk towards that piece, you end up experiencing the environment around you whilst looking at the piece itself.”

Visitors to the East Hampton exhibition can experience that themselves when they view “Torus,” a ring-shaped sculpture that, when approached head on, is reminiscent of an eye’s iris. In addition to a wholly mirror-polished stainless steel version, “Torus” is also available in variants that couple stainless steel with stone, slate, pebble or Carrara marble.

Well more than 50 percent of David Harber sales are in the United States, working with landscape architects, property developers and end-users. The studio has long had a roof terrace at the Decoration & Design Building in Manhattan, and this year opened a showroom in Palm Beach.

“A Celebration of Art in the Garden” opens Saturday, June 28, and runs every other Saturday through August 31 in East Hampton from noon to 2 p.m. by appointment. To book, email enquiries@davidharber.com or landscapes@landscapedetails.com.