Daniel Storto, glovemaker; born 1954 in Toronto, and trained by his Italian grandfather who was an artisan shoemaker; this tradition contributes to Storto's concern with "what I can contribute and leave behind."
Storto works and resides in Gloversville, New York (at one time, the glove making capital of the world), Storto says, "it's like living in a Diane Arbus photograph." Storto has the only storefront glove making shop in the world where one can experience the art of glove making.
His artistic preoccupation is with "large scale sculptural shapes-when worn, the shape becomes three dimensional." He also has an overriding concern with craft; a Storto glove, from cut to stitch, is entirely handsewn by him, a trademark of his work.
Storto's deep knowledge of glove history and the evolution of glove-making techniques, coupled with impressive work he'd done for Geoffrey Beene, led Hamish Bowles, Vogue's European editor at large, to invite him to recreate all the gloves for the 2001 Metropolitan Museum of Art's blockbuster exhibition "Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years."
Storto has collaborated with fashion designers Geoffrey Beene, Dries Van Noten, Alexander McQueen, Paul Smith and Timothy Everest. Recurring inspirations for his work are American artists Louise Nevelson, Diane Arbus, Larry Rivers, John Chamberlain, Ellsworth Kelly and Richard Serra.
Not surprisingly in 2002, the wider art world had taken notice of Storto, whose now famous sculptural "Circle" gloves were featured on the front and back cover of the interdisciplinary arts magazine 2wice (Vol.5:No 2). That issue was published on the occasion of an exhibition at the Davis Museum, Boston which included artists Sophie Calle, Nan Goldin, Adam Bartos, Andrea Zittel, Andrew Bush, Lorna Simpson and Matthew Barney.
In September 2004, Irving Penn photographed Storto's gloves for the cover of American Vogue and in September 2007 Storto's L.O.V.E. gloves were a feature cover story of American Craft magazine. In October 2009 Storto's life and work was the subject of a feature story by Guy Trebay for The New York Times.
Currently, in Gloversville New York, Daniel Storto is restoring a turn-of-the-century glove factory to become the only freestanding glove museum in the world, where visitors can experience the making of a glove from this world famous glovemaker.
