Sven Ortquist

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. 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. 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.

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.

Besides the woodcarvings, Ortquist also designed the cathedral’s stained glass windows.