Dwight Lanmon

Dwight Lanmon discusses Steuben’s designers. Oral history interview with Dwight Lanmon by Catherine Whalen and Barb Elam, conducted via telephone, August 5, 2019, Bard Graduate Center. Clip length: 00:44.

Dwight Lanmon: It was very interesting while I was there as before I became director, in—at Corning, that I got to know all of the Steuben designers very well. And I said, ‘Come on over and let’s talk about these things, and see what you think of them,’ and their answer was, ‘We never go in the museum, because we don’t want to have anybody say that we’re derivative.’ ‘We never look at historic glass.’ And I thought, ‘That’s sad.’ And fortunately during my time there that attitude changed. But they were so afraid of being judged to be derivative of earlier styles, and I think that fortunately that that attitude is now significantly over.

Dwight Lanmon discusses The Corning Museum’s founding Director Thomas Buechner and the studio glass movement. Oral history interview with Dwight Lanmon by Catherine Whalen and Barb Elam, conducted via telephone, August 5, 2019, Bard Graduate Center. Clip length: 01:04.

Dwight Lanmon: You know, so Bill [William] Warmus and Susanne [Frantz] are really the people that were involved at that point and Tom Buechner. I mean, don’t forget Tom Buechner, who I think is really central to the success of the studio glass movement. Tom as president when I went there as chief curator, he established a policy that we spent half of our money, half of all the acquisitions funds went to contemporary glass. And the other half went to the entire history of glass, so, and we only had like a hundred thousand dollars a year at that point—to make acquisitions. So fifty-thousand was devoted to contemporary glass and then very important, I think, in the development of the recognition of contemporary glass, of sculpture was not only Glass ’79, the exhibition, but starting The New Glass Review, which was Tom Buechner’s baby. Tom really started that and carried it.

Dwight Lanmon discusses the importance of Bohemia in the studio glass movement. Oral history interview with Dwight Lanmon by Catherine Whalen and Barb Elam, conducted via telephone, August 5, 2019, Bard Graduate Center. Clip length: 00:45.

Dwight Lanmon: Venice throughout its history was sort of closed to non-Venetians, non-Muranese. Whereas Bohemia, somehow, I don’t know why it happened, but the glass industry became the great darling of the Czech Republic after the war, and they realized that that was an important part of their history, and that—so the state poured a lot of money back into the industry after the war when it was destroyed basically, and not only in the factories, but also in developing the school programs. So [Stanislav] Libensky was very important in their regard, who was one of the professors who really taught a whole generation of artists.

Dwight Lanmon discusses Dominick Labino’s emphasis on glass compatibility. Oral history interview with Dwight Lanmon by Catherine Whalen and Barb Elam, conducted via telephone, August 5, 2019, Bard Graduate Center. Clip length: 00:42.

Dwight Lanmon: The one person who I think was vital was Nick Labino. Because Nick was a scientist who understood glass and I’m sure that he kept saying he kept drilling into them. You’ve got to make glass that’s compatible. And a lot of early pieces have broken—or crizzled and so forth because they were not compatible. So we’ve lost those, but I think Nick probably played a vital role—Glass Art Society played a vital role in that. Because they would have technical sessions as well as artistic sessions in their meetings.

Dwight Lanmon discusses the art versus craft debate. Oral history interview with Dwight Lanmon by Catherine Whalen and Barb Elam, conducted via telephone, August 5, 2019, Bard Graduate Center. Clip length: 00:51.

Dwight Lanmon: And it’s—I think it’s still not totally resolved, because there are still some major museums that do not have glass collections, let alone a curator, and I remember one time that—I forgot what the name of the publication was called, but it was the “stolen art alert” or something like that, which was a monthly alert and they had a section for craft and all of the furniture and so forth would be in that and then art and for the first time ever a piece of Dale Chihuly glass was included in art. It had been stolen and everybody said, ‘Ah, at last it’s art.’ But I think that’s still a question that this is not clearly resolved for a lot of curators and museum directors.

Dwight Lanmon discusses his impetus to “make glass interesting” to the public. Oral history interview with Dwight Lanmon by Catherine Whalen and Barb Elam, conducted via telephone, August 5, 2019, Bard Graduate Center. Clip length: 01:52.

Dwight Lanmon: That idea started basically with Jamie [James] Houghton who was then the chairman of the board of Corning Glass Works and I reported to both of the Houghtons—the brothers who were both—served as chairman and they served as president of the museum. So I reported directly to the head of corporation and one time Jamie invited a group called Young Presidents Association which were young presidents of corporations and really just starting out, but brilliant young people and he introduced me and I was at dinner, and then I was expected to take them through the museum afterwards and I said to Jamie as we were getting ready to start the program. I said, ‘Jamie, you give us 10 million dollars a year out of Corning Glass Works budget. Why do you do that? What is it you expect of me,’ and he smiled and he said, ‘Make glass interesting.’ He said, ‘That’s all, make glass interesting.’ He said, ‘I’ll take it from there.’ And I thought, ‘Wow, what a way to stoke you, and to get the interest in’—okay, fine everything we do has to make glass interesting. We know that people who came to Corning didn’t care at all about the history of glass. Okay, how are we going to grab them? Well, there are ways to do it. And so we experimented with those to make glass part of everyday life part of not history and antiquity, but to say there were living people who used these glass objects when they were new. Now, let me tell you about those people, and so we tried to relate it back to human beings all the time. And so that has been my role in museum work all along. How do I make glass interesting and understandable to people who don’t care? So you have one chance with a guest and that’s it. You have one chance, and if you blow it you’ve blown it.

Dwight Lanmon speaks about Thomas Buechner and Stueben. Oral history interview with Dwight Lanmon by Catherine Whalen and Barb Elam, conducted via telephone, August 5, 2019, Bard Graduate Center. Clip length: 00:19.

Dwight Lanmon: And what was interesting was that Tom Buechner, when I went to Corning as the chief curator, Tom Buechner was the president of the museum and he was also president of Steuben. So there’s the crossover. And it was, I think, mainly because of him that I got to know the designers so well.

Dwight Lanmon discusses the Houghton era of Steuben. Oral history interview with Dwight Lanmon by Catherine Whalen and Barb Elam, conducted via telephone, August 5, 2019, Bard Graduate Center. Clip length: 01:05.

Dwight Lanmon: This was in part, I think, due to what happened in 1932 or so when Arthur Houghton took over Steuben, and took it over from Fred Carder and wanted to change it dramatically, and what he did was to bring in architects and designers and artists, and not really glass people. And so you have the great early—you know, the thirties, forties, fifties, Stueben which is designed by people who were not glassmakers at all, but were simply aesthetics—aesthetes, who knew the modern design world. I think they were also influenced by Sweden, by what was going on at Orrefors [Orrefors Glassworks, Orrefors, Sweden] and elsewhere. But the modern movement was really started by Arthur Houghton and his compatriots, and I think it was continuing into the sixties and seventies when they said, ‘Okay, we’re gonna be independent designers, we’re not gonna be derivative of glass history.’

Dwight Lanmon discusses the Houghton era of Steuben. Oral history interview with Dwight Lanmon by Catherine Whalen and Barb Elam, conducted via telephone, August 5, 2019, Bard Graduate Center. Clip length: 01:05.

Dwight Lanmon: This was in part, I think, due to what happened in 1932 or so when Arthur Houghton took over Steuben, and took it over from Fred Carder and wanted to change it dramatically, and what he did was to bring in architects and designers and artists, and not really glass people. And so you have the great early—you know, the thirties, forties, fifties, Stueben which is designed by people who were not glassmakers at all, but were simply aesthetics—aesthetes, who knew the modern design world. I think they were also influenced by Sweden, by what was going on at Orrefors [Orrefors Glassworks, Orrefors, Sweden] and elsewhere. But the modern movement was really started by Arthur Houghton and his compatriots, and I think it was continuing into the sixties and seventies when they said, ‘Okay, we’re gonna be independent designers, we’re not gonna be derivative of glass history.’

Dwight Lanmon discusses his and Paul Hollister’s work on selecting paperweights for The Great Paperweight show, contemporary weights in the exhibition, and the accompanying Corning Seminar. Oral history interview with Dwight Lanmon by Catherine Whalen and Barb Elam, conducted via telephone, August 5, 2019, Bard Graduate Center. Clip length: 04:51.

Time stamp: 00:00
Clip 1: Dwight Lanmon discusses how his and Paul Hollister’s taste aligned while selecting paperweights for Corning’s Great Paperweight Show. Clip length: 01:24.

Dwight Lanmon: We traveled throughout New England and the Mid-Atlantic states talking to paperweight collectors, and it was always sort of interesting non-stop conversation as we were driving around. And what was interesting to me is that we never disagreed about which paperweights to include. When I didn’t like something, he didn’t like it, and vice versa. So we were well attuned to each other’s taste in terms of the paperweights we wanted to show. And as I said in the long section of discussion about the show, our aim was to show the greatest paperweights we could find. And that meant two things: artistically and technically. And—you know—you could have a beautiful weight that had a serious flaw, like a flower that had a petal out of place—or something. And we thought that wrecked it. Even though the paperweight might have been beautiful, if you looked at it closely, and most people would only see them in the book, it would be a defect, and we tried as best we could not to have any paperweights with visual defects.

Time stamp: 01:27
Clip 2: Dwight Lanmon discusses his and Paul Hollister’s commitment to making serious contributions to paperweight scholarship. Clip length: 01:28.

Dwight Lanmon: It was serious scholarship, first of all, and that has always been important to me, as opposed to, ‘Isn’t that pretty?’ And Paul really looked at them, and tried to figure out what they were, and talked about them aesthetically and technically in the catalog. And he and I met, I had met Paul, I don’t know how, but, early on in my career at Corning, and I just thought, ‘Well, what we want to do is not only show the greatest paperweights, but also make a serious contribution to understanding paperweights.’ So in addition to the catalog, the Flowers catalog, I measured the density of every weight in the show, and—so that we could begin to classify things technically. And also I did ultraviolet of every one and so it became a big joke that Lanmon could only tell where a paperweight was made when the lights are out. And looking at things under ultraviolet, but I did find that there were lots of things that simply were not true, that had been published in the past in terms of attribution. So there is a density chart for almost every paperweight that is shown in the catalog. And so as I say, we were trying to take the study and understanding of paperweights to a new level when we did the show.

Time stamp:0 2:52
Clip 3: Dwight Lanmon discusses pieces in The Great American Paperweight Show that weren’t in the catalogue. Clip length: 00:48.

Dwight Lanmon: So there are sixty-eight additional pieces that were not in the catalog that were in the show. There are a lot of early things we tried to put paperweights into perspective. We had a sixteenth, seventeenth century tazza from Venice, an ewer—same date. Roman millefiori plaques, Roman filigree bowl [inaudible]. So there are a lot of ancient things, but then a lot of contemporary. We had one exhibition case that was entirely full of contemporary weight makers. Nick [Dominick] Labino paperweight that was lent by Nick. Max Erlacher a piece that he did. Andy [Andre] Bellici, Ray Banford, Bob Banford, all lent by the artists. Debbie Tarsitano, lent by [Paul] Jokelson. Paul Ysart lent by Jokelson.

Time stamp: 03:43
Clip 4: Dwight Lanmon talks about the Corning Seminar on The Great Paperweight Show. Clip length: 01:08.

Dwight Lanmon: Well, I never heard anybody criticize the exhibition or the catalog, and the glass seminars at Corning, the annual seminar, one of the first ones that we did that was a special subject seminar after I went there as chief curator, was the 1978 program at—which we did entirely on paperweights and on related things, millefiori and that sort of thing. And it was, as I recall, it was the largest attendance that we’d ever had, and before I went to the museum and they had these general seminars, you’d get 30, 40 people, and it would typically be the same people year after year, which was great because you got to know the people. But I think for the paperweight seminar we had like 145 show up, so it was a huge difference and that was for me, very heartening. And encouraging, so they wanted to see the show, and a lot of the lenders were there for the seminar, and then some pieces came to the museum afterwards as gifts, that were in the show, that were privately held. So that was pleasing to me, as well.