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American Studio Glass: A Survey
of the Movement
July 3 - September 12, 2004
Delicate, whimsical, and complex glass sculptures created by artists from all over the country have safely made their way to the Heckscher Museum's of Art's sizzling summer exhibition American Studio Glass: A Survey of the Movement. This exhibit of about 50 works representing 30 artists will dazzle Museum-goers from July 3 through September 12, 2004.
The Heckscher's show features quintessential works by Harvey Littleton who founded the first fine arts glass program at the University of Wisconsin in Madison in 1962 and other forefathers of the American Studio Glass Movement Dominick Lambino, Littleton's partner in workshops that helped to position glass as art; Marvin Lipofsky, who founded the second university glass program in 1964 at the University of California in Berkeley; and Dale Chihuly, who distinguished himself by establishing the glass program at the Rhode Island School of Design also in 1964, and together with other artists, the Pilchuck Glass School near Seattle, Washington in 1971.
Today, more than 40 years later, Chihuly is a household name, and he and other artists like Toots Zynsky, Marvin Lipofsky, William Morris, Jay Mulser, as well as the artists they went on to train and inspire, have achieved not only national, but worldwide, recognition for their contributions to the art of glass. "Sparkling, exciting, and very often surprising, glass takes the form of bowls and vessels along with sculpture of intricate shape, texture, and subject matter from abstract to figurative," described Beth Levinthal, the Museum's executive director, who continued, "American Studio Glass is a world-class exhibition, not to be missed."
The William S. Fairfield Public Gallery in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin organized American Studio Glass: A Survey of the Movement.
Artist Biographies
Hank Murta Adams (born 1956; resides Troy, NY)
Hank Murta Adams was a student of Dale Chihuly at the Rhode Island School of Design. He graduated from RISD with a B.F.A. in painting in 1978. He continued his education at Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina and Pilchuck Glass School in Washington. Hank Adams subsequently worked as an artist, and as an educator at schools and universities ranging from the Toledo Museum School to UrbanGlass in Brooklyn, NY. Adams has been awarded three Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts. His work has been featured in numerous one-man exhibitions ranging from J&L Lobmeyr Glass in Vienna, Austria in 1984, to Remnant: Hank Adams, at The Arts Center of the Capital Region, Troy, NY, in 2001. Adams' work was selected for Creativity and Collaboration: Pilchuck Glass School at 30 in Seattle, WA, in 2000. Other group shows range from the triennial traveling exhibition, Americans in Glass, to World Glass Now, held in 1988 at the Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art, Sapporo, Japan. Adams' work was recently published in a 2002 article entitled, The Collection of Sara and David Lieberman in American Craft Magazine. Adams' imagery comprises iconoclastic busts in expressive designs.
Herb Babcock (born 1946; resides Oxford, MI)
Herb Babcock received his B.F.A. in sculpture from the Cleveland Institute of Art in 1969. After a year at the Toledo Museum of Art Glass Workshop, Babcock went on to earn his M.F.A. from the Cranbrook Academy of Art. Babcock is currently Professor and Section Chair of the Glass Department at the Center of Art and Design of the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, MI. Babcock has participated in numerous one-man exhibitions and group shows at Habatat Galleries including The Annual International Glass Invitational. Babcock has also participated in museum exhibits worldwide throughout his career; in 2002 alone, his work was featured in No Air: The Fine Art of Sculptural Glass, Butler Institute of Art, Youngstown, OH, and Alternatives, Museo del Vidrio, Monterrey, Mexico. In 1995, Babcock was commissioned by the Hsinchu Culture Center in Taiwan to produce a 22.5-foot tall stone, steel and fiber optic outdoor sculpture. His work is included in collections from the Detroit Institute of the Arts to Glasmuseum Frauenau and Kunstsammlungen der Veste-Coburg, both in Germany. Recently, Babcock's work was featured in the film, Contemporary Glass, Color, Light, & Form, by Leier, Peters, & Wallace, Guild Publishing, Madison, WI. Babcock typically produces mixed media assemblages with attention to shapes and textures.
William Carlson (born 1950; resides Urbana, IL)
William Carlson earned a B.F.A. at the Cleveland Institute of Art in 1973, and an M.F.A. in Ceramics from Alfred University, New York State College of Ceramics. He also studied at the Art Students League in New York. Carlson currently serves as a Professor of Art and Head of the Crafts and Sculpture Programs at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. An artist and an educator, Carlson has received awards ranging from University of Illinois Scholar to the International Glass Award from the Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art, Sapporo, Japan. His list of exhibits encompasses a broad range of elite one-man and group shows, including Craft Today USA, an exhibit that traveled to museums in European cities from Paris to Moscow. In 1985, Carlson was the keynote speaker for the First International Glass Conference of Japan in Tokyo. His work resides in permanent collections of an impressive list of institutions from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in the U.S., to the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Lausanne, Switzerland, and the Kyoto Museum of Modern Art in Japan. Bold, engaging geometry, impeccable craftsmanship, a range of media, and an even wider range of scale characterize the work of William Carlson.
Dale Chihuly (born 1941; resides Seattle, WA)
After earning a B.A. in Interior Design from the University of Washington, Dale Chihuly attended the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where he studied with Harvey Littleton, and earned an M.S. in 1967. Chihuly went on to earn an M.F.A. in ceramics from the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, and establish the glass program there. Chihuly established himself as an artist by drawing on an interest in Native American baskets he acquired at the Washington State Historical Society growing up in Tacoma, and combing that imagery with his newfound interest in glass, to create cylinders and baskets. Chihuly's break-through was a one-man exhibition at the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution in 1978. From there, Chihuly went on to establish himself as the biggest name in glass; in fact, for many today, the name "Chihuly" is synonymous with American Studio Glass. Chihuly's work has been exhibited in important group glass exhibitions worldwide; it has been featured in numerous one-man shows, and acquired for permanent collections of over 160 museums, including the world's leading art museums. Chihuly is noted for his collaboration, for giving opportunities to emerging artists who've gone onto successful careers of their own, and for his interest and support of education. Recent exhibits include Chihuly at the V&A (the Victoria and Albert Museum in London), Chihuly in the Park, a Garden of Glass, at the Garfield Park Botanical Conservatory, Chicago, IL, and Chihuly Over Venice, which inaugurated the new Milwaukee Art Museum. Dale Chihuly has been the recipient of numerous honors and awards. Aesthetically, Chihuly's focus in glass has been on design with attention to spontaneity and color, and centrifugal force and gravity, together with teamwork.
Jon Clark (born 1947; resides, Elkins Park, PA)
After earning a B.S. from the University of Wisconsin in River Falls in 1970, Jon Clark traveled to England and earned his M.A. from the Royal College of Art in London. Clark is currently Professor and Chair of the Arts Department at the Tyler School of Art of Temple University in Philadelphia, PA. Clark has served as Visiting Faculty at Pilchuck Glass School, and as a member of the Board of Directors of The Creative Glass Center of America in Millville, NJ, and the Glass Art Society. He has twice received Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Pennsylvania Council for the Arts. Jon Clark has routinely enjoyed one-man shows at Snyderman Gallery in Philadelphia. In 2000, he was included in Millennium Glass: An International Survey of Studio Glass at the Kentucky Art and Craft Foundation, Louisville, KY. He has also exhibited in dozens of other show including World Glass Now, held in 1988 at the Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art, in Sapporo, Japan; and Contemporary American and European Glass The Saxe Collection, which traveling coast-to-coast from The American Craft Museum in New York to The Oakland Museum in California. Clark's work is contained in various permanent collections including the Corning Museum of Glass, and his alma mater, the Royal College of Art, London, England. Clark draws upon figurative elements and landscape to create highly personal, metaphorical work.
Dan Dailey (born 1947; resides Kensington, NH)
Dan Dailey earned a B.F.A. at Philadelphia College of Art in 1969, and an M.F.A. from the Rhode Island School of Design. Today he maintains a glass studio in Kensington, New Hampshire, and serves as Professor at the Massachusetts College of Art, where he founded the Glass Department in 1973. Dailey has taught at numerous other glass programs including RSDI, Pilchuck Glass School, and Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Deer Isle, Maine, and lectured throughout Europe, Japan, and the United States. Dailey has served as an independent artist and designer for Cristallierie Daum, in Paris and Nancy, France for the past twenty years. He has also worked for Fenton Art Glass Company and Steuben. Daily has been a recipient of fellowships from both the Massachusetts Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts, and numerous awards. In 2001 alone, Dailey was honored with the President's Distinguished Artist Award from the University of the Arts, Philadelphia, PA, and the Masters of the Medium Award from the James Renwick Alliance. Daily is a past President of the Glass Art Society. One-man exhibits include a major retrospective at the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution. Over 40 museums in the U.S., Europe, Australia, and Japan possess his work. Dailey has produced a range of work including architectural commissions such as lamps, mirrors, and large cast glass murals. This diversity and his versatility are reflected in the vessel and flat work selected for this exhibit.
David Huchthausen (born 1952; resides Seattle, WA)
David Huchthausen earned a B.S. in 1975 from the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where he served as a graduate assistant to Harvey Littleton, and an M.F.A. from the University of Illinois, Normal, where he directed its glass program under the supervision of Joel Myers. After his formal education, Huchthausen was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study at the University of Applied Arts, in Vienna, Austria. Huchthausen served as Master Craftsman and Director of the Glass Program at the Appalachian Center for the Arts in Smithville, TN, and Associate Professor of Art and Director of Glass Programs at the Tennessee Tech University. In addition to teaching, Huchthausen served as consultant for glass exhibitions and collections to the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, Wausau, WI. Today Huchthausen produces glass in Seattle, WA, and owns and operates studio space for lease by other artists. Huchthausen has regularly enjoyed one-man shows with Habatat Galleries, Heller Galleries, and Leo Kaplan Modern in New York; and group shows abroad and in the United States including 200 Years of American Glass at the Corning Museum of Glass. The Smithsonian, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Musée de Verre in Liege, Belgium, and the Glass Museum, Frauenau, Germany are just a few of the museums with collections that include Huchthausen's work. Characteristic of it, is its architectural character, impeccable craftsmanship, and interplay between jagged exterior surfaces and soft cast shadows.
Kreg Kallenberger (born 1950; resides Tulsa, OK)
Kreg Kallenberger studied ceramics and glass making at the University of Tulsa, OK. After earning a B.F.A. there in 1972, and then an M.F.A., he taught at his alma mater. Today, Kallenberger works in a studio on his own ranch just north of Tulsa. In 2000, Kallenberger was the recipient of the Artist Award of Excellence from the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition. Other awards include a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. Kallenberger possesses a long list of exhibits. He, too, has regularly enjoyed one-man shows at Habatat Galleries, Heller Galleries, and Leo Kaplan Modern in New York. Group exhibitions include International Glass at the Millenium Museum in Beijing and the Shanghai Fine Arts Museum, in China, in 2001. In 2002, the Arkansas Arts Center in Little Rock, presented Kreg Kallenberger as part of its Glass Series. Kallenberger's work is included in permanent collections ranging from the American Craft Museum in New York, to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, and the Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art in Japan. Kallenberger's style evolved out of his experience with ceramics and blown glass, through a number of parallel series. In his Osage Series, he introduced earthy oil paints to represent the scrub of Oklahoma hills refracted by a limitless sky of tall vertical triangles.
Jon Kuhn (born 1949; resides Winston-Salem, NC)
Jon Kuhn earned his B.F.A in ceramics from Washburn University in 1972. He launched his career as an artist after completing his M.F.A. at Virginia Commonwealth University. Kuhn exhibited blown glass in many of the most important exhibitions of the time early in his career: New American Glass: Focus West Virginia, The Huntington Galleries; Americans in Glass, Woodson Art Museum, Wausau, WI; Emergence: Art in Glass, Bowling Green State University, Ohio; and New Glass: A World Wide Survey, The Corning Museum of Glass. After nine years of glassblowing, Kuhn changed direction. His current work is constructed from as many as 5,000 to 6,000 pieces of colored glass layered and laminated together, and then cut, ground and polished. The result is a myriad of color and optical illusion for the eye. Because Kuhn's work is labor intensive, one piece can take a year or two to complete. Kuhn's work, which draws viewers into its mysterious inner spaces, is inspired by the artist's interest in Zen Buddhism, and its qualities of mysticism and spirituality. The Collection of The White House, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Lausanne, Switzerland, and the Smithsonian, are just a few of the public collections that contain Kuhn's work.
Dominick Labino (1910 -1987)
Dominick Labino graduated from the Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1932. He was an artist, engineer, and inventor, who infused artistic vision with scientific knowledge. Labino spent over forty years in the glass industry. He is responsible for sixty patents in the U.S. and hundreds in foreign countries, and is particularly remembered for his development of glass fibers, glass papers, and furnace designs. In 1962, he and Harvey Littleton conducted workshops at the Toledo Art Museum that they hoped would transform glass making from an industrial medium to a medium for art. Their collaboration resulted in practices and technologies that made it possible for individual artists to work with glass in small, non-industrial studios, and this gave rise to The Studio Glass Movement. After retiring from his position as Vice President and Research Director at the Johns-Manville Fiber Glass Corporation in 1963, Labino pursued his own art at his studio in Grand Rapids, OH. Because of Labino's seminal role, his work has been included in most historic Studio Glass exhibitions. One-man shows include the Corning Museum's Dominick Labino -- A Retrospective Exhibition, 1964-1969, and Dominick Labino, Decade of Glass Craftsmanship, 1964-1974, which opened at the Pilkington Glass Museum and traveled to other venues such as the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and the Toledo Museum of Art. Labino's work is featured in collections of over sixty museums worldwide ranging from Washington, D.C. to Washington State in the United States, and Europe and Asia.
Marvin Lipofsky (born 1938; resides Berkeley, CA)
One of Harvey Littleton's first generation of students, Marvin Lipofsky established the second university glass program in the nation, at the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught until 1972. He also founded and headed the Glass Department at the California College of Arts and Crafts, and taught there until 1987. Lipofsky earned a B.F.A. from the University of Illinois in Urbana in 1962, and an M.F.A. from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. In 1971, Lipofsky was one of the founding members of the Glass Art Society. Lipofsky has enjoyed continuous, worldwide success as an artist and educator. He is the recipient of numerous awards and distinctions including National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships and being named an Honorary Life Member of the Glass Art Society, and a California Living Treasure by the Creative Arts League of Sacramento. The list of solo and group exhibits in which Marvin Lipofsky has participated is exhaustive. His work resides in collections in leading institutions in over two dozen countries, from The Metropolitan Museum of Art to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in the U.S., from the Museum Bellerive in Zurich, Switzerland to The National Museum of Modern Art in Kyoto, in Japan. Much of Lipofsky's work has been the result of collaborations between himself and factory workers and/or Masters at glass facilities here and abroad. The result has been a colorful aesthetic infused by diverse cultures and environments.
Harvey Littleton (born 1922; resides Spruce Pine, NC)
Often referred to as the "father of the American Studio Glass Movement," Harvey Littleton established the first glass program at an American university -- the University of Wisconsin, in Madison -- in 1962. Originally a ceramist, Littleton shifted to the study and production of glass after he and Dominick Labino combined forces in Toledo, Ohio, to develop new techniques and practices that would transform glass making from an industrial medium to a medium for art. Littleton's knowledge of glass stemmed from his upbringing in Corning, NY where his father was a physicist with a Ph.D. at Corning Glass Works. Littleton earned a Bachelor of Design from the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor in 1947, and an M.F.A. from the Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, MI. Research grants from the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, the University of Wisconsin, and the National Endowment for the Arts helped him develop his work as an artist/educator. A self-proclaimed "evangelist," Littleton has shared his knowledge and passion for art, education, and glass with people worldwide. Harvey Littleton is an Honorary Life Member of the American Ceramics Society and the Glass Art Society. Like his now famous students, he and his work have been the subject of countless exhibitions and publications, and private and public collections world-wide. In 1977, Littleton retired from teaching but continued working as an artist in Spruce Pine, North Carolina, where he focuses on little-known properties of glass such as compression, durability, and elasticity, to print prints made from glass plates known as vitreographs. In 2000, the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin honored Littleton by conferring to him an Honorary Doctorate Degree. Of Littleton's work, it can generally be said that it is a study in relationships of color, the strength of glass, and mathematical proportions.
Paul Marioni (born 1941; resides Seattle, WA)
Paul Marioni earned a B.A. in English and Philosophy from the University of Cincinnati, OH, in 1967. He is a Fellow of the American Crafts Council, a former member of the Board of Directors of the Glass Art Society, and a three-time recipient of a National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship. Marioni has taught coast-to-coast, from Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina to Pilchuck Glass School in Stanwood, Washington.
Paul Marioni has received impressive commissions including Liquid Light, SAFECO Campus, Redmond, WA, in 2001, and Hetch Hetchy, 150 California Street Financial Building, San Francisco, CA, in 2000. He is currently working on a commission entitled Reflection Fountain for the U.S. Courthouse in Seattle scheduled for completion in 2004. Marioni has enjoyed regular one-man shows at the William Traver Gallery, in Seattle. In 1998, he and his son Dante were given a two-man show entitled Marioni/Marioni at the Fresno Art Museum in California. His work has been featured in an array of group shows including Trashformations: Recycled Materials, which traveled to a dozen museums nationwide from 1997 to 2000. Marioni's artwork resides in collections ranging from the the Corning Glass Museum to the Oakland Art Museum in California, the Verein Steinsches Glaskunstmuseum, Barnbach, Austria, and the Yamaha Corporation in Tokyo. Marioni's work is generally figurative, intelligent, and witty. Some of his recent works, including those from his whistling series, re-introduce humor into notions of sexuality to confront taboos.
Richard Marquis (born 1945; resides Freeland, WA)
Richard Marquis earned his B.A. in 1969 and his M.A. in 1972 from the University of California, Berkeley. He exhibits regularly at The Elliot Brown Gallery in Seattle, WA, and has enjoyed numerous solo shows there, and at other galleries. Among his awards are a Fulbright-Hayes Grant to study in New Zealand, a Fulbright to study in Venice, and a National Merit Scholarship. During the year of the millennium, Marquis was honored with an Outstanding Achievement in Glass Award from UrbanGlass in Brooklyn, NY, and designated by the University of California, Berkeley as a Distinguished Alumnus. In 1997, The Seattle Art Museum presented Richard Marquis Objects: 1967-1997. Marquis possesses an extensive, world-wide list of group exhibits, including, most recently, Transparent Things - Expressions in Glass, at the National Gallery of Australia, in Canberra, and The Artful Teapot: 20th Century Expressions from the Kamm Collection, which toured throughout the U.S. Articles about Marquis and his work have been published in over twenty-five catalogs and sixty books. His artwork can be found in collections of "name" museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art around the world, as well as an array of those mentioned less often, such as The City Art Gallery of Wagga Wagga in New South Wales, Australia. Marquis' work is characterized by its fine craftsmanship and design, and its humor, joy, and whimsy.
Tom McGlauchlin (born 1934; resides Toledo, OH)
Tom McGlauchlin earned a B.S. in 1959 and an M.S. in 1960 in Art from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. From 1957-60 he studied pottery with Harvey Littleton. In 1962, he attended the first workshop on glass blowing at the Toledo Museum of Art conducted by Littleton and Labino. From 1971 to 1984, McGlaughlin served as Professor and Director of the Glass Program at the Toledo Museum of Art.
McGlauchlin currently operates The Glass Studio in Toledo, Ohio. In 2002, he received the Ohio Designer Craftsmen Award for Outstanding Achievement; he is also the recipient of three grants from the Ohio Arts Council. McGlauchlin has been awarded important commissions such as a suspended glass installation entitled A Free Verse In Color at Bowling Green State University, in Ohio; and A Mountain For Toledo, a plate glass and stainless steel sculpture in the lobby of the SeaGate Center. McGlauchlin has been in noteworthy glass exhibitions throughout his career, ranging from early, seminal shows such as American Glass Now at the Toledo Museum of Art, to Wisconsin's Glass Masters, organized by the Fairfield Public Gallery in 2000. His work is contained in public collections ranging from the Johnson Wax Company Collection of American Crafts, in Racine, WI, to the Smithsonian. McGlauchlin explores the possibilities of facial expression on pastel-colored glass to convey human emotions.
Michael Meilahn (born 1945; resides Pickett, WI)
Michael Meilahn earned his B.S. in Art in 1971 from the University of Wisconsin, River Falls, where Doug Johnson, who had earned his M.F.A. from UW-Madison under Harvey Littleton, established a glass training program. Meilahn earned an M.S. in art from Illinois State University in Normal in 1974. Meilahn has operated a glass studio in Wisconsin since 1972. Though he has taught glass at various locations including Penland in North Carolina, and the Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, Montana, Meilahn has focused his career on glass production and working on the farm he owns and operates in Pickett, Wisconsin. Meilahn has exhibited regularly at Edgewood Orchard Galleries in Door County since 1980. In 1982, Meilahn and his wife, Jane, co-curated The Wisconsin Movement - Glass In Form, at The Allen Priebe Gallery at the Oshkosh campus of the University of Wisconsin. Meilahn has consistently been included in important glass collections, exhibitions, and publications such as New Glass Review, published by the Corning Museum of Glass. Public collections containing his work range from the Neville Public Museum in Green Bay, WI, to McDonald Corporation in Chicago. Meilahn frequently expresses his concern for the impact of genetic engineering on the food chain through his art.
William Morris (born 1957; resides Stanwood, WA)
Though William Morris attended California State University in Chico, he began his career in glass at age 20 as a truck driver for the Pilchuck Glass School in Stanwood, Washington. Glass captured his imagination so much, that Morris not only learned how to blow it, but actually went on to become an instructor there, and then principal gaffer (head glass blower) for Dale Chihuly. Morris actually made most of the glass produced by Chihuly in the late '70's and early '80's. In the mid-1980's, Morris struck out on his own. He began with vessel forms evoking ancient imagery such as petroglyphs and archaeological artifacts. In the late '80's, Morris went to Italy to study and practice with Venetian masters. Morris' work has been featured in exhibits world-wide, including Art of Glass at the Chrysler Museum of Art, which featured a 36-foot-long sculpture consisting of over 100 life-sized glass elephant tusks with glass bones of ancient hunters, and wall-mounted panels of antler racks and other artifacts. His artwork resides in 34 collections worldwide including the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England, the Museum of American Glass, Millville, NJ, the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, France. An avid outdoorsman, Morris chooses to create work that reflects the beauty of nature and natural artifacts.
Jay Musler (born 1949; resides San Francisco, CA)
Jay Musler attended the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland from 1968 to 1971. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the California Arts Council, and two prizes at World Glass Now at the Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art in Sapporo, Japan. Jay Musler has been a guest artist and lecturer at schools and universities worldwide, with various appearances at the California College of Arts and Crafts. Musler has exhibited widely; in 1999 and 2000 alone, he enjoyed one-man shows at Habatat Galleries, Boca Raton, FL, Butters Gallery, Portland, OR, William Traver Gallery, Seattle, WA, and Heller Gallery in New York City. Group exhibits include American Glassmaking: The First Russian Tour, organized by Steuben in 1990, and The Universe of the Transparent, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Lausanne, Switzerland, 1989. His work resides in permanent collections of the Corning Museum of Glass, Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art, Toledo Museum of Art, and others. Musler typically superimposes orderly grid-like structures over the layered chaos of painted glass shards, organic material, and other fragments; though his recent wall reliefs are more casual and poetic.
Joel Philip Myers (born 1934; resides Ording, Denmark)
Joel Philip Myers graduated with honors from the Department of Advertising Design at Parsons School of Design in 1954. After spending a year studying ceramic design in Copenhagen, Denmark, Myers earned both a B.F.A. and an M.F.A. from New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, NY. From 1963 to 1970, Myers served as Director of Design at Blenko Glass Company, in Milton, WV. From 1970 to 1997, he served as Distinguished Professor of Art at Illinois State University, Normal, IL.
Myers has an extensive list of students who went on to establish themselves as noteworthy artists. Like Harvey Littleton, Joel Myers also possesses an encyclopedic list of awards and honors, solo and group exhibits, collectors, and publications. Awards and honors range from Honorary Life Member of the Glass Art Society to Fellow of the American Crafts Council, and Fellowship recipient from the National Endowment for the Arts. Among his innumerable exhibits are Joel Philip Myers & David Huchthausen (former student and assistant), Contemporary Art Niki Gallery, Tokyo, Japan, 1994; Joel Philip Myers, which traveled in Europe under the auspices of the Glasmuseum in Ebeltoft, Denmark, 1993; Joel Philip Myers and Students, Galerie L in Hamburg, 1991; and History of American Glass, co-organized by Corning and the Toledo Museum of Art, and exhibited at the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, among other major venues. Collectors range from The Art Institute of Chicago, to The Museum of Decorative Art, Prague, Australian Crafts Council, and Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art, Japan. Myers' work is characterized by exquisite craftsmanship and an extraordinarily strong sense of formal design.
Jeremy Popelka (born 1960; resides Sturgeon Bay, WI)
Jeremy Popekla earned a B.F.A. in 1984 at Illinois State University in Normal, where he studied under Joel Philip Myers. He went on to earn an M.F.A. from the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, CA, where he studied under Marvin Lipofsky. From 1993 to 1997, Popelka served as Teacher and Lecturer at the California College of Arts and Crafts. He has also served as Teaching Assistant to Bertil Vallien at The Pilchuck Glass School, and studied there under legendary German artist, Erwin Eisch. Jeremy Popelka owns and operates Popelka Glass Arts Studio, located blocks from the Fairfield in Sturgeon Bay, WI. It is the only hot glass studio currently operating in the art colony of Door County. Popelka, along with his wife, Stephanie, produces cast glass there and conducts glass workshops. Jeremy Popelka has exhibited in important exhibitions worldwide, ranging from Almost Alchemy, at The Transamerica Pyramid Gallery, in San Francisco, CA in 1996, to World Glass Now, organized by the Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art in Sapporo, Japan in 1994. His work has been published in American Craft Magazine, The Corning Glass Review, and Glass Magazine. Popelka is represented in this exhibition with sand cast sculptures from his recent Obelisk series. Their worn surfaces reflect his interest in geological time and archaeological evidence of an ordered creation.
Richard Royal (born 1952; resides Seattle, WA)
Richard Royal studied under Michael Whitley, one of Dale Chihuly's first students, at Central Washington University in Ellensburg. While there, Royal opened his own studio with friend Benjamin Moore in 1972. Royal was subsequently invited to work at the Pilchuck Glass School. While on Dale Chihuly's team at Pilchuck, Royal used his free time to develop his own aesthetic. Since 1981, Royal has served as an instructor at Pilchuck, and dedicated himself to the design and production of glass. Royal has also taught worldwide and served as Artist-in-Residence at schools and factories such as Niijima Glass Art Center in Japan and Waterford Crystal in Ireland. From 1978-1995, Royal served as Gaffer at Dale Chihuly Studio. Royal has had solo exhibitions at William Traver Gallery, Seattle, WA, the Marx-Saunders Gallery, Chicago, IL, and Foster/White Gallery, Seattle, among others. Royal's work has been featured in group exhibits ranging from Glass Today by American Studio Artists, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, in 1997, to Masters of Contemporary Glass, which toured the nation to venues including the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Mississippi Museum of Art, and Tucson Museum of Art. His work can be found in the IBM collection, New York, NY, the Daiichi Museum, Nagoya, Japan, and the Seattle Children's Theater. In 2002, Royal was designated Feature Artist for the Seattle Chamber Music Festival. Richard Royal produces large, abstract blown shapes in broad complementary colors, sometimes in combination with vessel forms, as introspective metaphors for personal self-expression.
Ginny Ruffner (born 1952; resides Seattle)
Ginny Ruffner graduated cum laude from the University of Georgia with a B.F.A. in painting and drawing in 1974. One year later, she graduated summa cum laude from her alma mater with an M.F.A. She went on to teach at Pilchuck Glass School and later served on the board at Pilchuck and the Seattle Arts Commission. Ginny Ruffner is a former President of the Glass Art Society; in 2000 she was appointed as an Honorary Lifetime Member. She is the recipient of the first UrbanGlass Award and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. Ruffner has enjoyed solo exhibitions at various galleries including Heller Gallery in New York City, Duane Reed Gallery in Chicago, and Maurine Littleton Gallery in Washington, D.C. The Seattle Art Museum presented a one-woman exhibit of her work and an installation entitled Mind Garden in 2002. Laumeier Sculpture Park Museum, St. Louis, MO exhibited an installation entitled, The Beauty of the Creative Process, in 2001. Groups exhibition range from Form and Fire: The Art of Contemporary Glass, at the Norton Museum of Art, Palm Beach, FL, in 2003, to Treasures from the Corning Museum of Glass. The Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, NY, the Cooper-Hewitt Museum of the Smithsonian Institution in New York City, and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Lausanne, Switzerland, are just a few museums world-wide which hold Ruffner's work in their collections. Typical of her early work, that which is included in this exhibition is a delicate, lyrical assemblage of lamp-worked glass rods and tubes sandblasted to create a soft luster, and colored by hand.
Jack Schmidt (born 1945; resides Toledo, OH)
Jack Schmidt earned a B.S. in 1968 from Bowling Green State University in Ohio. In 1969 he studied glass and assisted Fritz Dreisbach (one of Littleton's first generation of glass students) at the Toledo Museum of Art School of Design. Schmidt earned an M.S. in 1973 from Illinois State University in Normal where he also assisted Joel Myers. In 1974, Schmidt served as visiting instructor and acting department head of the graduate and undergraduate glass program at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Schmidt continued as an educator throughout his career, and has consistently been recognized in major collections, exhibitions, and publications. Schmidt was appointed Secretary of the Glass Art Society in 1974, and has been an active member ever since. He is the Recipient of awards from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Ohio Arts Council. He has enjoyed numerous one-man shows at galleries ranging from Habatat Galleries across the United States to Edgewood Orchard Galleries, in Door County, Wisconsin. Group exhibits range from Millennium Glass: An International Survey of Studio Glass, Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Montgomery, AL, to Masters of Contemporary Glass, The Naples Philharmonic and Museum in Florida. The Smithsonian, Corning Museum of Glass, Detroit Institute of Art, Toledo Museum of Art, and other public and private collections possess his works, which typically are sculptural fabrications of glass, metal, and/or stone.
Paul Seide (born 1949; resides New York, NY)
Paul Seide earned a certificate from the Egani Neon Glassblowing School in New York in 1971 and his B.S. at the University of Wisconsin in Madison in 1974. Seide served as Vice President and Design Director of Milropa Studios in New York City since 1975, and Instructor. Seide has exhibited his work at Leo Kaplan Modern and Heller Gallery in New York City, and at Habatat Galleries nationwide. Seide lost his entire New York Studio and inventory as a result of the 9/11 terrorist attack; he has since been working to rebuild it. In 1995, Seide received an architectural commission for the Swarovski World of Crystal, in Wattens, Australia. His work has been widely published and exhibited both in one-man shows and group shows ranging from every Americans in Glass exhibition ever held to the Biennale Internationale De Verre D'Art Contemporain in Biot, France. Seide's work is included in permanent collections ranging from the Corning Museum of Glass, to the Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, WV, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Lausanne, Switzerland, and the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Japan. Paul Seide has been an innovator of neon technologies including vacuum systems and remote radio oscillators to activate his sculptures. Seide creates one-of-a-kind neon sculptures that he lights and colors with low-pressure ionized gases.
Therman Statom (born 1953; resides Escondido, CA)
Influenced by his boyhood neighbor, painter, Kenneth Noland, Therman Statom entered the world of art by studying glass at the Pilchuck Glass School in 1971, and earning a B.F.A. from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1974 and an M.F.A. from the Pratt Institute of Art and Design in 1978. Statom has taught at Pilchuck and the University of California, Los Angeles. Among his awards figure a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. Statom has exhibited in numerous solo and group shows ranging from Painting on Glass, New York Experimental Glass Workshop, in 1986, to International Directions in Glass Art, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, 1982. Statom has received over a dozen commissions for permanent large-scale site-specific installations including those at the Los Angeles Central Public Library, the Los Angeles County Metro Rail Westlake/MacArthur Park Station, and in 1996, Hydra at the Toledo Museum of Art, which incorporated works from the museum's permanent collection including paintings by Van Gogh and Cézanne and an enormous cut glass punch bowl made by Libbey Glass for the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair. Permanent museum collections include the the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the American Craft Museum in New York City, and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, France. Statom is best known for his painted ladders, houses, chairs, tables, and boxes, constructed out of window glass, plywood, and found objects.
Steven Weinberg (born 1954; resides Pawtaucket, RI)
Steven Weinberg earned a B.F.A. from The New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University in 1976, and an M.F.A. from the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence in 1979. He is a two-time recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. Weinberg has had regular one-man shows at various galleries including Marx-Saunders Gallery in Chicago, Heller Gallery in New York City, and Habatat Galleries nationwide. He has exhibited his work in an extensive list of group exhibitions world-wide, ranging from Vessels, The International Exhibition of Glass, at the Koganesaki Glass Museum in Japan in 2000, to seminal exhibits like New Glass: A Worldwide Survey, organized by the Corning Museum of Glass in 1979. Weinberg also possesses an extensive list of publications about his work, and a worldwide list of leading public collections, ranging from The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, to the Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art in Sapporo, Japan, and the Kunstmuseum Dusseldorf in Germany. Weinberg works with pure optical crystal to achieve geometrical unity and balance. In his newest work, Weinberg also explores, what he calls, concrete, literal, and tangible symbolic imagery.
Toots Zynsky (born 1951; resides Providence, RI and Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Before graduating with a B.F.A. from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1973, Zynsky was one of the original group of artists to found the Pilchuck Glass School, in 1971. She went on to dedicated herself to the founding of yet another educational organization, UrbanGlass in Brooklyn, NY. There she explored and worked with hand-pulled glass threads, fusing them separately and combining them with blown forms. In 1982, in collaboration with Mathijs Tenuissen Van Manen, she developed a special technique for this process, which she named "filet-de-verre" (to mean fused and thermo formed glass threads). A trip to Ghana, West Africa in 1985 inspired a bolder use of color and form. In 1999, Zynsky received the Innovation in a Glassworking Technique Award from UrbanGlass. She has also received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts. Her list of exhibits, which is long and wide, includes a major solo exhibition with a catalogue containing an essay by aesthetician Arthur Danto, that was launched in 2001 by The Glasmuseet in Ebeltoft, Denmark for travel to the Museo Carrer, in Venice, Italy and museums in Germany, Belgium, and several other European countries. Her works have been exhibited in numerous group exhibitions including Venetian Glass: 20th Century Italian Glass from the Olnick Spanu Collection at the American Craft Museum in New York in 2000. Zynsky was the first contemporary artist to be directly commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art. Zynsky's work is contained in prestige collections internationally ranging from major American art museums to the The White House Collection, The Kunstammlungen der Veste-Coberg, Germany, The Dutch Central Bank Collection in Amsterdam, and the Yokohama City Museum of Art, Japan. Toots Zynsky works in a unique style by interweaving thousands of threads to form carefully crafted, colorful vessels of glass.
Introductory Wall Text for the Exhibition
Mary Ann "Toots" Zynsky is one of many artists who have become entranced with the expressive potential of glass in the past three decades, an era during which she, Dale Chihuly, Marvin Lipofsky, Paul Marioni, Steven Weinberg and many others transformed their passion for glass into an international phenomenon.
This summer, the Heckscher Museum of Art is pleased to present American Studio Glass: A Survey of the Movement, an exhibition that examines the roots of this sparkling art form. More than fifty works represent twenty-six artists whose innovative approaches are as varied as the artists themselves. While glass containers and vessels have been made for more than 2000 years, these artists take traditional forms like bowls and vases to new levels of individual expression. They create sculpture of intricate shape, texture and subject matter, from the abstract to the figurative. Glass is blown, molded, painted and etched; it is combined with metal, wood and stone.
It is no coincidence that this exhibition had its genesis in Wisconsin. In 1962, Harvey Littleton -- now known as the father of the Studio Glass Movement -- founded the first university glass program in America at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Earlier that year, Littleton conducted workshops with Dominick Labino at the Toledo Art Museum that were intended to remove glass-making from the province of skilled craftsmen only, into a viable medium for artists. In the past, master glassmakers like Louis Comfort Tiffany ran large factories, employing numerous craftsmen to transform original designs into finished pieces. By contrast, Studio Glass often involves a single artist -- sometimes working with a small studio -- who conceives of and makes one-of-a-kind art objects.
From Littleton's glass program in Madison, a wave of artists and educators emerged who evangelized the aesthetic possibilities of glass worldwide. Marvin Lipofsky, the first to earn an M.F.A. in glass at the University of Wisconsin, founded the second university glass program in America in 1964 at the University of California in Berkeley. Dale Chihuly, who graduated from the M.F.A. program at the University of Wisconsin in 1967, went on to establish the glass program at the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design the same year. Together with other artists, he created the famed Pilchuck Glass School near Seattle, Washington, in 1971.
This exhibition begins with work by Littleton and Labino and follows the blossoming of the glass movement across the country as subsequent generations of glass artists have become teachers, and have passed on the legacy. Toots Zynsky, for example, studied with Chihuly in Rhode Island and went on to become a co-founder of the Pilchuk School with him. On this coast, she later helped establish UrbanGlass in Brooklyn, N.Y. The Glass Art Society, founded in 1971, is comprised of more than 2,000 artist members worldwide today and many institutions are collecting studio glass as a significant new American art form.
American Studio Glass: A Survey of the Movement was organized the William S. Fairfield Art Museum, in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. Its presentation at the Heckscher is supported by grants from Suffolk County under the auspices of the Department of Cultural Affairs and from the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.
Checklist for the Exhibition
Editor's note:
On February 25, 2010 Dr. David J. Wagner brought to our attention that the above exhibition was a tour venue for one of his traveling exhibitions. He asked us to provide the following credit:
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