Annotated Bibliography

Hollister briefly describes the emergence, following the 1962 glass workshop led by Harvey Littleton and Dominick Labino at the Toledo Museum of Art, of a new movement of “art” or “studio” glass in America. The work of a younger generation of individual “glass artist-producers” was gaining acceptance, exhibition exposure, and interest from museums and collectors. Hollister details and assesses an assortment of vases and bottles—some verging on “piece[s] of sculpture in traditional disguise”—by seven artists and two glass studios, all of which can be found at Contemporary Art Glass Group in New York City. He particularly admires work by James Daniel, William Carlson, and Tom Patti and predicts that a small laminated vase by Patti will be repeatedly illustrated in contemporary-glass publications. Incl. prices and illus. (5 b/w, 5 color) of work by Michael Boylen, William Carlson, Joseph Clearman, James Daniel, David Donaldson, Lynn Kirschbaum, Charles Lotton, Lundberg Studios, Tom Patti, and Mark Peiser.

Hollister provides a brief overview of the scope, layout, and installation of the Chrysler Museum’s 8,000-piece encyclopedic glass collection (5,000 works on view) initiated by a gift from Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. Hollister outlines the arc of Chrysler’s glass collecting with an emphasis on the current desirability of his acquisitions of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century glass. Work by masters of this era including Frederick Carder, Auguste Daum, Émile Gallé, René Lalique, Gabriel Argy-Rousseau, and Louis C. Tiffany—whom Hollister identifies for their ability to adapt historical precedent in service of an individualized artistic view—dominate the text. The article concludes with a barb aimed at contemporary glassworkers rehashing these older styles: “The Art Brand-Nouveau of today is a pale, stale apeing of what was once crammed with imagination and technical knowhow that characterizes the real thing.” Incl. prices and illus. (7 b/w, 6 color) of work by Gabriel Argy-Rousseau, Frederick Carder, Auguste Daum, Émile Gallé, and Louis C. Tiffany.

The review of The Great Paperweight Show at The Corning Museum of Glass (April 29–October 21) deems it a jewellike “once-in-a-lifetime exhibition.” It features 300+ weights drawn from museum and private collections, notably that of Armory Houghton, chairman emeritus of Corning Glass Works. Hollister admires the museum’s scholarly approach and the show’s dramatic and instructive installation, including attention to weights whose makers incorporated “ancient glass techniques” in their designs. Dwight P. Lanmon, Corning’s deputy director of collections, and Hollister both selected weights for the exhibition and coauthored its catalogue. Hollister begins his review with the quotation, “Consider to whom did it first occur to include in a little ball all the sorts of flowers which clothe the meadows in the spring.” The exhibition catalogue, Paperweights: “Flowers which clothe the meadows,” uses a shortened version. Although not specified, the source of the quote is Marc Antonio Sabellico, a fifteenth-century historian of Venice who wrote about the glass industry on the island of Murano, referencing the technique of millefiori (“a thousand flowers,” in Italian). As Hollister explains, “Rods of colored glass are shaped, fused together to form cane designs, stretched to great lengths while still plastic, and finally sliced to reveal miniaturization of the original designs.” He concludes by quoting several collectors at length, providing insights into motivation, connoisseurship, and the market. Incl. prices and illus. (7 color) of work by Baccarat, Clichy, Gillinder, and Saint-Louis.

The text is an addendum to Paul M. Hollister and Dwight P. Lanmon, Paperweights: “Flowers which clothe the meadows” (Corning, NY: Corning Museum of Glass, 1978), the catalogue accompanying The Great Paperweight Show of 1978, organized by The Corning Museum of Glass. Lanmon and Hollister collaborated on selecting 300+ paperweights for the exhibition and preparing the 167-page catalogue, for which the latter wrote the accompanying essay and commented upon the 78 color plates. This list enumerates an additional 69 items, including 29 contemporary paperweights dating from 1973 through 1978, chosen by Hollister. Editor’s note: Paul Hollister recorded material related to this publication. See linked pages for Dwight Lanmon and The Corning Museum of Glass for Bard Graduate Center transcript of audio recordings held by The Rakow Research Library of The Corning Museum of Glass: Paul Hollister and Dwight Lanmon Lectures, May 17, 1986 (Corning BIB ID: 167926).

Sixty-seven artists are represented by 652 pieces in this “cross-section of American Studio Glassmaking” on view at the 6th annual national survey exhibition at Habatat Galleries in Dearborn, Michigan (1820 N. Telegraph Road, April 15–May 6, 1978). Hollister finds much to like in this big show and describes some of its “beautiful, exciting, innovative highlights.” He emphasizes technical precision, noting artists such as Paul Manners who are not content to “work with dishwater glass,” and he highlights glassmakers such as Tom McGlauchlin, Richard Ritter, George Thiewes, Charles Wright, and Judy Kelmen, whom he feels are pushing themselves artistically. Hollister’s writing manifests the vivid metaphors and the often wry, sometimes mischievous tone especially evident in his early reviews. When he praises Robert Bartlett’s cross-banded, cube-shaped cast-glass bottles for their originality, for example, he describes them as containing “mysterious internal essences in which imaginary forms appear to float and languish like pickled specimens. Is it a turnip? A registered nurse’s wravelled stocking? A hermit crab seen by X-ray in its shell?” Hollister also discusses collectors and the emerging market. Sizes and types of objects range from “a two-inch bottle to a 30-inch lamp,” and prices between $25 and $1,500. Incl. prices and illus. (11 color) of work by John Bingham, Janet Kelman, John Lewis, Paul Manners, Tom McGlauchlin, Joel Philip Myers, Richard Ritter, George Thiewes, Charles Wright, and Brent Young.

The 15 naturalistic floral paperweights on view in Paul Stankard’s solo exhibition at Habatat Galleries in Dearborn, Michigan (1820 N. Telegraph Road, November 11–December 4, 1978) chronicle the artist’s acquisition of skill over his eight-year lampworking career. Hollister explains the scientific research underpinning Stankard’s pieces and gives in-depth descriptions of 13 of the limited and “open” edition paperweights included in the exhibition, naming prices and pricing criteria, length of run, and in some cases, remaining number of pieces. The article appears in the same issue as Hollister’s review of the 6th annual national exhibition at Habatat Galleries (“Glass—Something for Everybody at Habatat”). Incl. prices and illus. (10 color) of work by Paul Stankard.

Hollister discusses the disparate glassworks of John Nygren and Herb Babcock at the Contemporary Art Glass Group in New York City. Nygren’s diminutive vases depict scenes from nature, often adorned with three-dimensional sculpted renderings of frogs and lizards. Babcock’s work, by contrast, displays a fascination with “gossamer translucency” in three-dimensional forms. Incl. prices and illus. (1 b/w) of work by Herb Babcock.

Organized by Douglas Heller and sponsored by his gallery Contemporary Art Glass Group and the Glass Art Society, Glass America 1978’s “handsome display was a cross-section of the work of 50 American glassmakers, which included glass for every taste and pocketbook” ($60 to about $2,000). A follow-up to Heller’s Contemporary Art Glass 1976, likewise held in the atrium of the “glass sheathed” Lever House building in midtown Manhattan, this exhibition and the accompanying catalogue cemented the gallery’s role as an arbiter of taste on a national scale and prompted purchases by prominent institutions as well as private collectors. Techniques range from blowing, lampworking, lamination, and slumping to plate and stained glass. The latter includes Leifur Breidfjord’s huge “glass tapestry” and Ray King’s 18-foot “abstract screen,” both intended as inducements for commissions. Hollister praises and critiques Tom Patti’s Solar Bronze Riser, the “miniature monument” in laminated glass pictured on the show catalogue’s cover and subsequently acquired by the Museum of Modern Art. Harvey Littleton, Hans Frabel, Mary Shaffer, and others present sculptural work. Steven Weinberg’s “small yet massive” frosted-glass objects are “packed with power,” both original and skillfully executed. Hollister admires vases by Tom McGlauchlin, David Hutchthausen, Herb Babcock, Richard Ritter, and Dan Dailey, and he describes Dale Chihuly’s “casually strewn and nested glass baskets” as “pleasantly offbeat.” Incl. prices and illus. (6 b/w, 5 color) of work by Dale Chihuly, Hans Godo Fräbel, David Huchthausen, Harvey Littleton, Ray King, Tom McGlauchlin, Karel Mikolas, Tom Patti, Richard Ritter, Mary Shaffer, and Steven Weinberg.

While comparable to his Collector Editions review (vol. 7, no. 4, Fall 1979) on The Corning Museum of Glass exhibition New Glass 1979, Hollister is more critical in tone and more specific in his likes and dislikes in this short piece. He emphasizes international contributions, especially those from Czechoslovakia that, despite only having 24 entrants, “dominate[d] the show”; he mentions only Roberto Moretti and Hans Godo Fräbel (whom he calls “a natural” for his surrealist Hammer) from the United States. Questioning the timidity of the jurors, Hollister designates the exhibition as “neither as large, experimentally broad-ranged nor as colorful as the all-European Coburg Glass Prize 1977 show.” Nonetheless, “there are plenty of pieces to marvel at.” Incl. illus. (1 b/w) of work by Hans Godo Fräbel. Editor’s note: Paul Hollister recorded research material related to this article. See linked artist pages for Bard Graduate Center transcript of audio recordings held by The Rakow Research Library of The Corning Museum of Glass: Paul Hollister Self-recording, April 11, 1979 (Corning BIB ID: 168418).

Hollister comments on the distinctly different approaches of youthful glassmakers William Carlson and Christopher Ries, which were on view in a two-person exhibition at the Contemporary Art Glass Group in New York City (806 Madison Avenue). A professor at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Carlson creates sculptural perfume bottles that evidence an affinity with art deco and an interest in the graphic qualities of glass color achieved through cutting and polishing blown pieces to reveal their refractive interiors. The highly prolific Ries, a recent MFA recipient, displays both lower-cost blown vessels and rarified carved sculptures in clear optic crystal. While commenting on the innovation in sculptural glass these works represent, Hollister identifies Ries’s cut crystal as “mostly too expensive and perhaps too abstract to be commercially successful.” Techniques discussed include glassblowing, Vitrolite inlay, sandblasting, and optical glass. Incl. prices and illus. (6 color) of work by William Carlson and Christopher Ries.

Frenzied buying accompanied the opening of the much-expanded 7th annual glass national at Habatat Galleries in Dearborn, Michigan (1820 N. Telegraph Road, March 17–April 7, 1979). More interested in surface ornament than form, most glassblowers submitted vessels, but the show was saved from becoming a “monotony of ovoid vases with vestigial necks” by the variety of shapes in the works of Michael Nourot, Dick Huss, George Thiewes, and others. Millefiori was used increasingly as a decorative technique. Hollister deems the sculptural glass better than last year, but “in too many sculptural attempts … chance takes the place of form and miscalculations are welcomed as if they were inspirations.” He finds the glass paintings of Henry Halem especially compelling. Incl. prices and illus. (3 b/w, 7 color) of work by John Bingham, Henry Halem, Dick Huss, Harvey Littleton, Joel Philip Myers, Michael Nourot, Richard Ritter, George Thiewes, Charles Wright, and Brent Young. 

Hollister enthusiastically reviews the Michigan-based Habatat Galleries’ “gigantic” show, which features glass paperweights made by approximately 75 contemporary artists. While a few of the weights incorporate traditional nineteenth-century European techniques and designs, such as millefiori, the majority demonstrate a profound shift in aesthetic choices and approach as studio glass artists experiment with the paperweight form. The show reveals the paperweight as “a small convenient means to work out possibilities and fantasies, to consolidate and refine ideas applied to large glass containers and sculptural forms.” Hollister captures the breadth of reinvention through brief descriptions of several artists’ work, discussing how they manipulate color and layering in pursuit of realism, illusion, or abstraction and how they play with surface texture. The forms range from amorphous shapes to geometric and sliced solids with sculptural qualities to weights with multiple components. Incl. illus. (9 color) of work by Bob Bartlett, Steven Correia, Lee Hudin, Janet Kelman, Gerald Larcomb and Sally Wicht, Harvey Littleton, John Nickerson, Mark Peiser, and Pete Robison.

In 1979, 20 years after the pathbreaking exhibition Glass 1959: A Special Exhibition of International Contemporary Glass, The Corning Museum of Glass organized New Glass: A Worldwide Survey. While the earlier show catalogued the growth of modern design in industrially produced glass, New Glass heralded the international rise of the independent artist-craftsman. The show included 427 objects from 196 makers in 24 countries. This highly influential exhibition, which helped put studio glass on a national stage, traveled to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Toledo Museum of Art, the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution, and the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum after opening at Corning. In his lengthy review, Hollister pays particular attention to the show’s numerous sculptural works, of which there were almost none in 1959. He rates among New Glass’s most successful pieces Anthem of Joy in Glass by the Czech designer Věra Lišková, “the star of the exhibition … a fairytale blown by lampwork.” He also describes several memorable vessel forms; notes examples of whimsy, kitsch, and some “fine looking” commercial tableware; and suggests that the exhibition’s four-foot size limitation was at least partly responsible for the poor showing of stained and leaded glass. In the end, however, Hollister returns to the exhibition’s sculptural selections, remarking, “Now we know that glass can accommodate almost any aesthetic experience.” These works, like the exhibition catalogue’s cover illustration of Tom Patti’s Banded Bronze, show that glass “is on the way to something new.” Incl. illus. (8 b/w, 8 color) of work by Howard Ben Tré, Michael Boehm, James Carpenter, Gunnar Cyrén, Hans Godo Fräbel, Richard Glasner, J. R. Grossman, Pavel Hlava, Věra Lišková, Orrefors, Anthony Parker, Tom Patti, Peter Rath, Rosenthal Glas & Porzellan AG, Albin Schaedel, and Paul Seide. Editor’s note: Paul Hollister recorded research material related to this article. See linked page for Bard Graduate Center transcript of audio recording held by The Rakow Research Library of The Corning Museum of Glass: Paul Hollister Self-recording, April 11, 1979 (Corning BIB ID: 168418).

Hollister reviews Pilchuck Projects 79, the first exhibition at Gallery II (18 East 67th Street, New York), a new venture by the Contemporary Art Glass Group. The show features work made by Ann Wärff and Wilke Adolfsson of Sweden as well as Klaus and Isgard Moje of Germany during their residencies at Pilchuck Glass School in Stanwood, Washington. Pilchuck’s Dale Chihuly also participates in the show. Warff, a Kosta Boda designer and Coburg Glass Prize winner, has worked with master gaffer Adolfsson to produce softly colored blown and acid-etched vessels depicting “the private imagery of [Wärff’s] Scandinavian farm.” Klaus Moje’s roughly ground fused-and-slumped glass bowls recall granite or marble and evince “an austere power.” Hollister remarks that Isgard Moje’s small, heavy vessels come off less well in the show, having “a vaguely dusty, dated look, like something found in the attic.” Chihuly’s “wilting, unstable, asymmetric and useless glass baskets” are saved from earlier cuteness by nesting smaller baskets inside to create “kinetic sculptural groupings.” Incl. prices and illus. (1 b/w) of work by Dale Chihuly.

Artist Harvey Littleton and seven gallery owners each comment on the state of studio glass in response to Hollister’s query about what to expect of the field in the 1980s. Littleton predicts that American glass artists will ultimately surpass their European peers in quality and technique, even in commercial production. Most of the dealers, however, focus on the difficulty posed by the very popularity or trendiness of studio glass—the challenge of finding and identifying exceptional pieces that truly qualify as “art,” as opposed to more commercially oriented or “craft” glass for the general buying public. Hollister concludes the article by observing that while terminology does not yet “distinguish between glass that is art and glass that is craft … it is ultimately the glass itself that reveals which it is” to the viewer. Incl. illus. (2 b/w, 3 color) of work by Dale Chihuly, Harvey Littleton, Joel Philip Myers, and Steven Weinberg. Editor’s note: Paul Hollister recorded research material related to this article. See linked artist page for Bard Graduate Center transcript of audio recording held by The Rakow Research Library of The Corning Museum of Glass: Harvey K. Littleton Interview with Paul Hollister, November 7, 1979 (Corning BIB ID: 168575). 

Artist Steven Weinberg, based in Providence, Rhode Island, uses casting techniques in distinctive new ways to encase geometric designs inside modular glass forms. The shortest of Hollister’s three profiles of the artist, this article describes Weinberg’s time-consuming method of casting hot glass over carefully grouped plaster-silica molds to produce negative spaces in blocks of translucent glass. He sandblasts additional texture and color into the interior forms and polishes the blocks’ exteriors, producing an effect “like foam trapped in a wave.” Weinberg’s work moves away from the simple, symmetrical shapes with which he began, becoming more complex and challenging. His “technically innovative” and “visually powerful” glass objects defy existing categories of glasswork and have the potential to “make glass history.” Incl. prices and illus. (1 b/w, 3 color) of work by Steven Weinberg.

Hollister re-presents in a slightly different, longer form the same information conveyed in his Collector Editions (vol. 8, no. 2, Spring 1980) profile of Steven Weinberg. He emphasizes the uniqueness of Weinberg’s casting process, includes additional technical details, and engages more deeply with the changing aesthetics of his modular sculptures over the two previous years. Weinberg continues to vary and improvise within the formal restrictions of his chosen approach. If his earlier, simpler designs captured the tension between “three-dimensional form and its containment,” in his newer works “the interaction between negative and positive spaces became more interesting, more deceptive,” and more architectural, challenging and puzzling the viewer with “dangerous avenues” and mazelike blind alleys. Hollister characterizes Weinberg as “one of the most promising members” of the American studio glass movement. Incl. illus. (4 b/w) of work by Steven Weinberg.

This account of The Corning Museum of Glass’s new building (opened June 1, 1980) is a longer and indeed more personal response to the museum’s renovation than the one Hollister later wrote for Collector Editions (vol. 8, no. 4, Fall 1980). While providing similar information about the new museum’s layout and exhibitions, this version adds extensive descriptions of the Gunnar Birkerts–designed building’s exterior, entry ramp, and lobby, as well as an exterior view of the building and an illuminating floor plan. Hollister also gives free rein to his enthusiasm for the reinstalled museum, from “the wonderful library” to “superbly confected” dioramas to the “knock-out collection” arranged in encyclopedic displays that are “exhilarating, breathtaking, and finally overwhelming.” While dismissing some design elements as shameless public-relations stunts and fearing that the new museum “is not, as touted, above flood level”—the devastating damage done to the original museum by Hurricane Agnes in 1972 having provided some of the impetus for renovation—Hollister nonetheless pronounces the new museum “a resounding success” and “a treasure house for civilization.” Incl. illus. (4 b/w) of work by Gunnar Birkerts, Jaroslava Brychtová, and Stanislav Libenský.

Following an early background in ceramics, Henry Halem studied glassblowing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with Harvey Littleton. After working traditionally with the material for several years, Halem developed a novel technique for producing flat glass panels in 1977. Enamored by these pieces in his review “Seventh Annual Glass National at Habatat” (Collector Editions 7, no. 3, 1979), Hollister traces Halem’s multistep process in this article. Beginning in the hot shop, Halem produces custom-colored sheet glass by first blowing cylinders and opening them into flat panels through a centuries-old technique. He uses the custom sheets in concert with industrially-made glass to create assemblages that are further enriched with sandblasting. Hollister notes that Halem has recently begun to use commercial glass alone to “liberate himself from the tyranny of the glassmaker’s bench.” Incl. prices and illus. (4 color) of work by Henry Halem.

Hollister discusses contemporary Scandinavian glass on view at Habatat Galleries (Lathrup Village, Michigan, June 14–July 14). Four designers for Sweden’s Orrefors employ decorative styles developed in the factory decades earlier; Hollister describes both the Graal technique of cutting a design into colored glass and then encasing it in clear glass, used by artists Gunnar Cyrén and Eva Englund, and the variant Ariel technique, used by Olle Alberius and Lars Hellsten, in which designs are sandblasted into a clear glass layer encasing colored glass and then enclosed again in clear glass. Hollister also discusses work by the independent designers and master-glassblower team of Ann Wärff and Wilke Adolfsson, including blown and etched vessels whose imagery exhibits “the creative drama we associate with painting” and “evocative” sculptural panels. Incl. prices and illus. (4 color) of work by Wilke Adolfsson, Eva Englund, Edla Freij, Hadeland Glassworks, Finn Lynggaard, Orrefors, and Ann Wärff.

The article sketches the layout and installation of The Corning Museum of Glass’s new building for its 20,000-piece collection, which opened to the public on June 1, 1980. This “world center” for glass exhibition and publication has a library at its core, around which the curving main gallery provides a chronological overview of glass history from 1500 BC to the present. Other spaces and displays permit in-depth engagement with glass from specific eras and cultures around the globe, and repeating films contextualize exhibited objects by “showing the various important historical techniques involved.” Hollister emphasizes how the installations facilitate learning about glass but notes that the museum design will suit even hurried visitors. Similar to but shorter than Hollister’s “The New Corning Museum of Glass, a Personal View” in The Glass Club Bulletin (no. 30, Summer 1980). Incl. illus. (2 b/w) of work by Georges Despret, Jaroslava Brychtová, and Stanislav Libenský.

Hollister briefly describes four exhibitions at the Heller Gallery in New York City. They include contemporary works in the Corning-organized New Glass exhibition, recently opened at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, plus solo shows spotlighting the two American studio glass innovators Harvey Littleton and Dominick Labino and the Yugoslavian artist Raoul Goldoni. Littleton’s geometrically sliced glass canes “reveal interiors that suggest x-rays of flowers,” while Labino’s historical investigations—some of which are on loan from collectors—are so technically sound, “one can be assured that the glass will never crack from some internal stress.” Goldoni, accomplished in several media, shows ambitious glass and bronze “human skulls, animal heads, and abstract groupings that suggest the growth of living forms.” Incl. prices and illus. (1 b/w) of work by Tom Patti.

In 1981, the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum in Wasau, Wisconsin, mounted Americans in Glass, the third of a triennial of exhibitions documenting the state of the field. Organized in consultation with artist David Huchthausen, the show highlights the work of 75 contemporary makers, selected by jurors Paul Hollister, artist Italo Scanga, and Peter Rath, co-owner of J&L Lobmeyr Glass. The 80-page catalogue contains Huchthausen’s introduction, the jurors’ statements, and a page for each artist featuring a large image of their work, a brief statement, and their CV. Hollister argues that a hybridization of art and technique “has produced the growing phenomenon we call studio glass.” Where the relative dearth of technical skills during the movement’s first decade (1962–72) resulted in objects that “ranged from the safe and salable to experimental,” artists’ rapid improvement in technical proficiency led to a veritable “menagerie of glass,” limited only by artistic imagination. The dizzying range of approaches and styles, and the swift pace of change, make it “difficult to establish practical criteria for judging,” hence the jurors sought “to reach unanimity on what was exhibitable beyond a reasonable doubt.” Hollister observes that the final selections “represent a broad spectrum of the potentials of glass.” Subsequent venues include the Cooper Hewitt Museum in New York City and Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Incl. illus. (36 b/w, 39 color) of included artists’ work.

Forms that “are only memories of the sea” by Dale Chihuly are on view at the Charles Cowles Gallery in the artist’s first New York solo show. In a color palette of pinks, corals, pearly grays, and off-whites, which contrasts with that of other glassblowers, Chihuly’s sea forms reflect the contest between form and gravity that is the essence of glassblowing. Hollister notes the spread of Chihuly’s influence as a founder of Pilchuck Glass School and chairman of the glass and sculpture departments of the Rhode Island School of Design. Incl. illus. (1 b/w) of work by Dale Chihuly.

A profile of Douglas Heller outlining the development of his galleries (“generally recognized as the first devoted exclusively to contemporary art glass”) and his developing approach to collecting, this article investigates the profound growth of the studio glass movement in the United States from the 1960s to the early 1980s. Encouraged by art nouveau glass dealers Minna and Arthur Rosenblatt, Heller and the Rosenblatt’s son, Joshua, began representing a handful of studio glassmakers at antique fairs before opening their first gallery on Manhattan’s tony Upper East Side in the early 1970s. As the field matured, the pair experimented with new venues and novel exhibition strategies, adjusting their business name accordingly. By 1978, Heller and his brother Michael became the gallery’s sole proprietors, changing the name to Heller Gallery. Their two-floor venue showcases the work of 100 artists and boasts an international clientele. Incl. illus. (5 color) of work by Sydney Cash, Raoul Goldoni, and John Nygren.

Hollister discusses how the multiculturally referent blown-glass heads in Don Shepherd’s Helmeted Warrior series contrast with Meredith Wenzel’s subtly colored, delicately patterned vases in a two-person show at Heller Gallery in New York that emphasizes the breadth of contemporary studio glass. Shepherd’s Helmeted Warriors combine blown glass and steel wire to create communicative pieces with “pleading eyes and mouths,” while the efficacy of the recycled glass “failures” in his Transitional Heads series remains to be seen. Wenzel’s highly individualized style, a personal take on a cutting-and-casing blowing technique popularized by her teacher Tom McGlauchlin, produces works that deserve to be “treasured” despite occasional technical flaws. Incl. prices.

Hollister combines information from his two previously published profiles of Steven Weinberg (Collector Editions 8, no. 2 [Spring 1980]; and Glass Club Bulletin, no. 129 [Spring 1980]) to give a detailed account of the artist’s unusual and lengthy process for making modular glass forms by casting glass over plaster molds and then sandblasting, grinding, and polishing it. He describes Weinberg as a second-generation studio glassmaker and notes that he was a student of Dale Chihuly at the Rhode Island School of Design. Hollister briefly summarizes the development of Weinberg’s work between 1978 and 1980 before discussing his current practice in 1981. While retaining his signature play of positive and negative spaces and of polished and sandblasted surfaces, the artist’s latest pieces have doubled in size and exchanged the trapped interiors that first caught Hollister’s attention for airy glass skeletons. He reserves judgment on Weinberg’s new direction, noting only that “it will be interesting how we come to see these pieces when we understand them more fully.” Incl. illus. (3 b/w, 3 color) of work by Steven Weinberg. Editor’s note: Paul Hollister recorded research material related to this article. See linked artist page for Bard Graduate Center transcript of audio recording held by The Rakow Research Library of The Corning Museum of Glass: Steven Weinberg Interview with Paul Hollister, January 13, 1981 (Corning BIB ID: 168607).

New York artist Sydney Cash first developed his novel technique for slumping “sheet glass over wires to make the glass bend and ripple” in 1970 and 1971, but it was not until the late 1970s that he perfected it. The results of his efforts were on view in the artist’s third solo show at the Heller Gallery in SoHo (October 3–31, 1981). On the thoughtfully composed and dramatically presented exhibition, Hollister comments, “No other glass comes to mind in which we see the interaction between melting glass and gravity so gracefully caught in the act of perpetuity.” Incl. illus. (7 color) of work by Sydney Cash. Editor’s note: Paul Hollister recorded research material related to this article. See linked artist page for Bard Graduate Center transcript of audio recording held by The Rakow Research Library of The Corning Museum of Glass: Sydney Cash Interview with Paul Hollister, July 2, 1981 (Corning BIB ID: 168605).

Hollister describes the three-part show of 50+ pieces documenting the history of Swedish Orrefors glassware at the Heller Gallery of Glass Art in New York. Section one comprises the first American solo show for leading Orrefors designer Gunnar Cyrén. The second consists of a historical selection curated by Cyrén featuring “30 examples of Orrefors glass made since 1918” including three engraved pieces shown at the Paris international exposition in 1925. The third features “six important vessels” by the Orrefors innovators Edvard Hall and Simon Gate, on loan from well-known dealer Lillian Nassau. While Cyrén’s and Nassau’s contributions are for sale, the historical component curated by Cyrén is not. As a result, Orrefors has agreed “to copy any pieces that it contributed to the display.” The exhibition traveled through 1983. Incl. prices.

Instrumental in developing “what is now called the studio glass movement,” Harvey Littleton “has also produced a diverse selection of his own glass.” Thirty pieces of Littleton’s work, which document his “search for form and the urge to produce,” were displayed at Exhibition Space in SoHo (112 Greene Street) in a show organized by the Heller Gallery. Many of Littleton’s forms begin with a process rooted in the centuries-old technique of millefiori glass cane, in which opaque glasses are gathered atop one another to produce a pattern when cut in cross-section. Littleton, by contrast, layers veils of transparent colors that he “twists, overlaps, and bisects … with a diamond saw, slicing them into segments that can be rearranged to suit.” The exhibition also includes earlier works on loan from collectors, including Do Not Spindle, “in which thick plates of glass are being lanced by metal, to which they respond by bending gracefully.”

Approximately 500 mostly young glassworkers and enthusiasts gathered for a “seemingly unending series of hour-long panel discussions” along with slide presentations and films at the 12th annual Glass Art Society conference in New York City, April 7–10, 1982. Hollister cheekily describes how lofty discussions on the nature of art and the future of glass reverted to “the much trampled ground of Art versus craft—craft being considered as a sort of blue collar Art.” He filled in for critic Clement Greenberg, who was not able to attend, and offered a conciliation in the form of a Robert Frost poem for the vaunted “what is Art” question. Incl. illus. (3 b/w) of Erwin Eisch, Frances Higgins, and Michael Higgins.

As in his profile of Michael Glancy published in American Craft (vol. 42, no. 4, August/September 1982), Hollister summarizes the artist’s formal training in ceramics, glass, and metalwork and carefully outlines the techniques at the heart of his work. Hollister describes the combination of glassblowing, sketching, stencil making, sandblasting, polishing, and electroforming processes through which Glancy creates his “jeweled objects” of glass and metal. Yet this article is less critical than the first, containing nearly twice the number of illustrations but lacking the detailed written descriptions of specific pieces and occasional skepticism. Incl. illus. (2 b/w, 5 color) of work by Michael Glancy.

Hollister reviews the four massive cast-glass columns by Howard Ben Tré at Hadler Rodriguez Gallery in Manhattan (38 East 57th Street, through April 15). Hollister situates the artist’s work as exemplifying a newly defined sculptural approach to glass. He observes that Ben Tré is critical of the seductiveness of glass and feels that artists should impose “their personalities on the medium.” Ben Tré pursues that individualized approach through an elaborate hot-casting process combining resin-bonded sand and sheet copper to produce unusual textures and tints of a variety of colors. He later augments the surfaces of his glassworks, which are cast at the Blenko Glass Company in Milton, West Virginia, with copper patina.

This feature article traces the development of William Carlson’s work between 1976 and 1982. The artist’s early pieces, like the small perfume bottle that first drew Hollister’s attention, involved blown vessels faceted to reveal their interiors. Carlson further experimented with attaching flat pieces of Vitrolite—a colored structural glass—to his sliced vessels. He casted and laminated flat-sided containers with millefiori cores, foregrounding the interplay of color, reflection, and optical illusion. Hollister assesses this work as “a tremendous advance for Carlson” toward making fully three-dimensional sculpture. He carefully describes how Carlson laminates cast-glass shapes into larger compositions and then reduces them by cutting and grinding the result into a final form. These newest pieces maintain Carlson’s initial interest in layers, facets, angles, and reflection, but now they “are truly sculptural”: “The viewer can never look at the piece from one point and see what it is all about.” Incl. illus. (3 b/w, 3 color) of work by William Carlson.

Howard Ben Tré grew up in the dense urban environment of Brooklyn, New York, attended Brooklyn Technical High School, and worked as a machinist before earning an MFA in sculpture and glass from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in 1980. Hollister relates this background to Ben Tré’s artistic development from 1978 to 1982, discussing how his use of copper in glass casting, mechanically evocative geometric forms, and practice of labeling rather than titling individual pieces lend his work both “industrial” and sculptural qualities. He details the artist’s process, from creating molds using wood or chemically bonded sand—into which he cast up to 500 pounds of glass in furnaces at RISD or, more recently, the Blenko Glass Company in Milton, West Virginia—to his treatment of accidental cracking and final surface texture. At Blenko, Ben Tré increased the scale of his work, a move that Hollister deems not entirely successful. Where he had given the artist’s recent exhibition of four large glass columns a fairly positive review in the New York Times (April 1, 1982), here he dismisses three of the four pieces as having “pound for pound … more weight than message.” Notwithstanding, he praises Ben Tré for having “the courage to ignore” the higher profit potential of smaller work. As noted by Neues Glas editors in the publication’s next issue (no. 4, 1982), Ben Tré took exception to Hollister’s criticism and pointed to art critic Kenneth Baker’s more positive review. Neues Glas reprinted Ben Tré’s letter and an excerpt from Baker’s review and asked readers to decide. Incl. illus. (4 b/w, 5 color) of work by Howard Ben Tré.

Dale Chihuly’s second exhibition at the Charles Cowles Gallery (420 West Broadway, New York, June 5–26, 1982) features his Macchia series, which derives its name from the Italian word for speckled. Rather than the “gossamer delicacy” of the sea forms in his earlier Cowles show, the abstract Macchia pieces loosely reference “black mud, wet sand, and the cold machinery of waves.” Hollister describes the blowing process and notes Chihuly’s use of a glassblowing team.

This article recapitulates and updates Hollister’s earlier profile of Henry Halem (Collector Editions 8, no. 3 [Summer 1980]). Hollister adds more detail to the early progression of Halem’s technique for making “paintings” in flat glass and discusses the artist’s thorough embrace of Vitrolite, an obsolete commercial building glass once readily available in a variety of vivid opaque colors and now sought and stockpiled by Halem and other artists. After discovering Vitrolite in 1979, Halem began sandblasting stenciled designs into subtle monochrome pieces; his latest work returns to his initial interest in color, collaging and inlaying different hues of Vitrolite into flat, abstract panels whose “bright, saturated colors push, loom, tear and slice through the field of vision.” For Halem, glass has become simply the medium in which he makes his art; the material itself “is unimportant.” Halem, professor of art and director of Kent State University’s glass program in Kent, Ohio, like other academics, faces the challenge of balancing his studio time with teaching responsibilities. Incl. illus. (3 b/w, 2 color) of work by Henry Halem.

In his most recent works, Rehoboth, Maryland–based artist Michael Glancy has developed his distinctive sand-carved and electroformed vessels beyond the “geometrically decorative” into the realm of sculpture by addressing his techniques to the overall form of his pieces rather than just their surfaces. Introduced to electroforming while an MFA candidate in glass at the Rhode Island School of Design, Glancy has developed this technique, which uses electrical current to deposit copper onto a specially prepared substrate and is typically associated with metalworking, into a signature of his blown-vessel-and-plate constructions. Hollister gives a step-by-step account of the artist’s complicated processes and describes several pieces from the past four years. Skeptical of Glancy’s historical awareness and ambivalent about the carved plates that he uses to set off his vessels, Hollister is nonetheless positive about the artist’s work as a whole. Incl. illus. (5 color) of work by Michael Glancy.

The high quality and prodigious talent of artists in the nascent Canadian studio glass movement was on view in two exhibitions coinciding with the 3rd annual Canadian Glass conference in Toronto. A student exhibition at Harbourfront demonstrated a “variety of ideas and obvious expertise” with “a kind of young daring that was largely lacking in the more secure efforts” that were on view in the Canadian Contemporary Glass 1982 show at the Koffler Gallery in Toronto. Artists self-selected the 150 pieces on view at the Koffler, many of which deployed glass techniques generically, making it seem “like seeing a replay” of American studio glass. Nonetheless, there were several highly accomplished works including those by Robin Fineberg, Francois Houdé, Toan Klein, Max Leser, and Ed Roman. Incl. illus. (3) of work by Robin Fineberg, Max Leser, and Karl Schantz.

Hollister discusses three Upper East Side galleries that exhibited glasswork, Departure Gallery, Theo Portnoy Gallery, and Heller Gallery of Glass Art. At Departure, he finds Vernon Brejcha’s blown works most compelling in an uneven show that also includes Katherine Bernstein’s figurative kiln-cast sculptures and Paul Marioni’s “tenuous portraits of what may be West Coast Indians” presented in a “rolled-like-dough cathedral glass process.” A solo show at Theo Portnoy by Toots Zynsky, recent recipient of an emerging arts grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, displays early versions of what would become her signature filet-du-verre process. On view at Heller are Michael Glancy’s “meticulously carved and electroplated vessels,” which have a “jewel-like richness,” and William Morris’s Eleven Standing Stones, based on the ancient stones of the Orkney Islands (UK) and displayed with their oversized wood molds constructed by woodworker Jon Ormbrek.

The journal published a transcript of the panel discussion at the Glass Art Society’s 12th annual conference in New York City, April 7–10, 1982, in which Hollister participated. (Hollister’s irreverent account of the conference proceedings appears in Neues Glas, no. 2 [1982].) As a last-second substitute for the art critic Clement Greenberg, Hollister had no time to prepare his thoughts on the topic of “What Makes Art?”; his brief opening comments respond to opinions offered by fellow panelists Richard Shiff, professor of art history at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; New York City Commissioner of Cultural Affairs Henry Geldzahler; and panel moderator Thomas Buechner, founding director of The Corning Museum of Glass. The wide-ranging discussion, which included questions from the audience, touches on criteria for identifying “good” and “great” works of art; the distinctions (or lack thereof) between craft and fine art, between technique and idea, and between craftsman and designer; and ways in which producers and consumers alike play roles in “making” art. In his comments, Hollister often insists on the importance of process and skill in creating art objects; countering Schiff’s distinction between fine art and craft by redefining “craft” as “the skill with which art can be produced,” Hollister proposes that haptic or embodied knowledge contributes in unique ways to finished work. He also warns that Geldzahler’s injunction (with Ezra Pound) that artists should “make it new” too often leads to poor work in a crowded exhibition calendar, “which does not give the person a chance to develop.” He also disagrees with Geldzahler’s stipulation (à la Greenberg) that good art must be memorable. Buechner’s remarks on “stature” prompt Hollister to lament some glass artists’ tendency to think that bigger is better when it comes to scale. When audience member Susan Stinsmuehlen asks the panelists to identify examples of “good contemporary glass art,” all but Buechner decline to mention active artists by name; Hollister explains that he does not collect glass because even if he could afford it, it would pose a conflict of interest with his work as a critic. Incl. illus. (4 b/w) of work by Thomas Buechner, David Hockney, Paul Hollister, and Richard Shiff.

Three shows on view at the American Craft Museum display disparate approaches, timelines, and geographies to glass and ceramic production. Glen Lukens: Pioneer of the Vessel Aesthetic, organized by the Fine Arts Gallery of California State University, includes 26 pieces, likely from the 1920s and 1930s, demonstrating this American artist’s investigations into clay bodies, glazes, and unusual application methods. Czechoslovakian Glass: Seven Masters, guest curated by Meda Mladek, presents pieces drawing upon a variety of glasswork techniques, including engraving, cutting, and blowing, by Václav Cigler, Vladimir Kopecký, Jiří Harcuba, Stanislav Libenský, Jaroslava Brychtová, René Roubíček, and Věra Lišková. The third exhibition, The Vessel Form: Selections From the Permanent Collection, features ceramics from the last 50 years.

Hollister recounts and assesses artist Tom Patti’s highly individualized approach to glassmaking. Trained in industrial design at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, and perception theory at the New School for Social Research in Manhattan, Patti came to glassmaking 12 years after the Toledo Glass Workshops kicked off the studio glass movement in 1962. Rather than begin with molten material, Patti inflates heated plate glass and Vitrolite reclaimed from building exteriors in a process he terms “blown-laminated glass.” The resulting pieces are diminutive in size but architectonic in feel. Hollister categorizes Patti’s work in three phases: inflating a laminated cube into a sphere (1975–77), supporting and occasionally obscuring a small bubble “within a framework of wings and fins” (1977–79), and extending “these vertical or horizontal extensions or ribs” on two of the four sides to create illusionistic, architectural spaces (from 1980). Incl. illus. (3 color) of work by Tom Patti. Editor’s note: Paul Hollister recorded research material related to this article. See linked artist page for Bard Graduate Center transcript of audio recording held by The Rakow Research Library of The Corning Museum of Glass: Tom Patti Interview with Paul Hollister, March 4, 1983 (Corning BIB ID: 168377).

Hollister reviews glass by physicist Dr. Jesse T. Littleton, his son Harvey, and grandson John (along with collaborator Kate Vogel), on view in the exhibition Three Generations in Glass: The Littleton Family at Heller Gallery in Manhattan. Hired by Corning Glass Works in 1913, Dr. Littleton, the first PhD employed by the glass industry, is best known for his pioneering work in developing Pyrex cookware and his identification of the temperature at which glass melts. His son Harvey, represented in the show by sculptural assemblages, “laid the groundwork for the studio glass movement” and started the first university glassblowing program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1962. Harvey’s son John is a photographer and glassworker who collaborates with Vogel on “whimsical blown-glass drawstring bags in pastel shades.”

Although Hollister has trimmed words and minor details here and there, the text of this profile of Tom Patti is otherwise virtually identical to the one he published two months earlier in American Craft (vol. 43, no. 3) except for its closing paragraphs. Here, he inserts a critique of Patti’s work absent from the other version: “Occasionally, however, features are added that distract from the impression of unity of a given piece.” Three years earlier, Patti began incorporating plastic into some of his glass pieces, fusing the two materials so that “the cast plastic is virtually indistinguishable from the glass,” a development that may cause “collectors or critics to reevaluate his more recent work.” Patti also recently undertook a commission for a large sculptural work entirely in plastic, made for General Electric. Incl. illus. (3 b/w, 9 color) of work by Tom Patti. Editor’s note: Paul Hollister recorded research material related to this article. See linked artist page for Bard Graduate Center transcript of audio recording held by The Rakow Research Library of The Corning Museum of Glass: Tom Patti Interview with Paul Hollister, 1983 (Corning BIB ID: 168377).

Hollister interprets Joel Philip Myers’s work in glass with reference to his early training in graphics and ceramics. He notes Myers’s career began in advertising and graphic design (BFA, Parsons School of Design, 1954) and shifted to clay, culminating in an MFA from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. Myers switched to glass in 1963 and became director of design at Blenko Glass Company in Milton, West Virginia, where he remained until he joined the faculty of Illinois State University in 1970. Hollister describes in detail the forms and techniques that distinguish Myers’s work from that of other glassblowers. Around 1978, the artist began applying thin, shell-like fragments of colored glass onto a blown “more or less spherical bubble,” then rolling it on a marver to make the surface flush. Initially relying on black or white opaque glass with a dull, matte surface for the blown vessel or background, he began using clear glass during a residency at Pilchuck Glass School. Since 1980, Myers “has taken a giant stride forward,” producing bigger, bolder, flattened vessels with deeper, more translucent layers of glass, patination and texturing, and sliced top edges. For Hollister, “These fine pieces have a massive presence and unity that seems lacking in even larger, heavier pieces blown by other glass artists,” with an “orchestration of color about form [that] makes a statement for our time.” Incl. illus. (3 b/w, 5 color) of work by Joel Philip Myers.

The current exhibition of pâte de verre at the Heller Gallery in New York City combines new work by emerging artist Doug Anderson and pieces by nineteenth-century French makers such as Amalric Walter, François Décorchemont, and Gabriel Argy-Rousseau, including loans from Minna Rosenblatt. An ancient technique, pâte de verre was revived by Henri Cros in France in the mid-1880s and adopted by the French artists in the show and others for its ability to convincingly portray items drawn from nature. Like his predecessors, Anderson fuses crushed glass, powdered enamels, and metallic oxides in molds cast from life. Works such as Fish Bowl, Mail Fish, and Fish’ n Chips include cases made from dead bluegills and evince both technical excellence and a sense of whimsy.

In this article, Hollister focuses on the collaboration between artists Flora Mace and Joey Kirkpatrick. The pair coexecute “flat cloisonné illustration on hot glass” through a process of reproducing pencil drawings in wire, incorporating the wire into glass forms during the blowing process, and using lampwork techniques to finish the images. Mace, who learned to weld as a child, drew upon her metalworking skills to create large wire-and-bead sculptures at New Hampshire’s Plymouth State College (BS, 1972). At the University of Illinois (MFA, 1976), she began making pieces using drawn-glass threads based upon her interest in the “flow of line.” In the mid-1970s, she produced designs for Dale Chihuly. Kirkpatrick received a BFA in drawing from the University of Iowa in 1975 before pursuing graduate work in glass at Iowa State University. The two first met in 1979 at Pilchuck Glass School, where Mace was teaching and Kirkpatrick was enrolled as a student. Mace helped Kirkpatrick execute her drawings in glass, first with glass threads and then with wire. The selection of their jointly produced pieces for a show forced them “to come to terms with whose work it was.” Their decision to cosign it—unusual in the studio glass world—led to their ongoing artistic collaboration. Hollister describes their process in detail and discusses Mace’s desire to avoid becoming “a mere technician.” Incl. illus. (5 b/w, 4 color) of work by Flora Mace and Joey Kirkpatrick. Editor’s note: Paul Hollister recorded research material related to this article. See linked artist pages for Bard Graduate Center transcripts of audio recordings held by The Rakow Research Library of The Corning Museum of Glass: Joey Kirkpatrick and Flora Mace Self-interview for Paul Hollister, September 30, 1983 (Corning BIB ID: 168374).

The first national survey at Heller Gallery in six years, Glass America 1984 features 250 pieces from 150 glassworkers across the gallery’s two outposts (Madison Avenue and SoHo). While the “work ranges from innovative excellence to long familiar styles,” Hollister’s overall impression of the show is that it represents a “holding pattern’ with no big leap up or down.” Nonetheless, it denotes a coming of age for studio glass “since the bubble-gum-blowing sixties and cylindrical-container seventies.” Hollister lists several artists whose pieces he admires, but his favorite works are Tom Patti’s “laminated handful, just perfect in size, shape and color” and Steven Weinberg’s “exquisite glass puzzle.” He notes Ken Carder and Douglas Navarra as especially worth watching. Incl. illus. (2 b/w, 1 color) of work by Valerie Arber, Flora Mace and Joey Kirkpatrick, Douglas Navarra, and David Schwarz.

Hollister reviews 150 pieces from Venini & Company dating from the 1930s to the present on view in an exhibition at the Heller Gallery in SoHo (May 5–June 2, 1984). Founded by Paolo Venini in 1921, the company distinguished itself in Muranese glass through collaborations with sculptors, designers, and architects. A third of the pieces date to the 1940s and 1950s, including two nudes by Fulvio Bianconi, blown by Ermete Toso; this group was selected by Leonard Tomkinson, an authority on the company. The rest are “current and recent,” including examples by Italian artist Laura de Santillana, Finnish designer Tapio Wirkkala, and American James Carpenter. Dale Chihuly and Richard Marquis have also worked at the factory. A demonstration by William Gudenrath at the New York Experimental Glass Workshop (later UrbanGlass) and appraisals by Tomkinson accompany the exhibition.

The Glass Art Society (GAS)’s annual conference, held at The Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, New York (May 16–19, 1984) attracted 610 glass artists, critics, students, and enthusiasts for an “exhaustive and exhausting agenda” that crowded 77 speakers into three days. “While the status seekers for glass were jousting in their cumbersome armor”—continuing to traverse the art-versus-craft debate with varying degrees of dismissiveness or circular opacity—a “seemingly unending” series of artist slide presentations provided “more than ample proof of the rude health, incipient illness, and especially the stimulating chaos of the contemporary glass scene.” Although he found some presentations rewarding and even inspiring, Hollister generally lambasts an overcrowded schedule that left little time to process what was said and often literally “no time for questions: one was simply given the word, even when it was the wrong word. It was largely a one-way conference, with the speakers high on the platform, unable to see their own slides on the screen, and the receivers down in the dark.” Incl. illus. (3 b/w) of Thomas Buechner, Andries Copier, Clement Greenberg, Robert Kehlmann, Kim Levin, Dominick Labino, and John Perreault.

Abandoning an early career in product design, Mark Peiser enrolled in a glassblowing glass at the Penland School of Crafts (later Penland School of Craft) in 1967 and never left. Hollister follows the emergence of Peiser’s distinctive glass landscapes through three distinct phases. From 1970 to 1974, Peiser treated blown-glass vases as canvases for opaque, pictorial surface decoration. From 1975 to 1981, Peiser’s series of “paperweight vases” blended the pictorial and sculptural through the use of lampwork and colored cane. During these six years, Peiser explored volume in heavily layered, transparent vessels that suggest “repeated vistas and deceptive distances” in the voids they enclose. In 1982, frustrated by the limitations of cane and curved surfaces, Peiser began mold casting glass, producing solid polyhedral forms that still evoke landscapes while playing with color and volume in new ways. These pieces are ground, cut, and polished to achieve “a unified sculptural presence,” “nuggets of color and light” whose imagery captures “the essence of natural phenomena in their remembered and surprised moments.” Incl. illus. (7 b/w, 10 color) of work by Mark Peiser and Gallé.

Michael Aschenbrenner’s service in the Vietnam War—including a serious leg wound and subsequent convalescence in an army hospital—directly impacted his work. Hollister describes, evaluates, and interprets Aschenbrenner’s Damaged Bone Series: Chronicle 1968, a six-year series of “twisted and fractured [glass] limbs, some put in traction, most held in makeshift splints of twigs and swaddled with old rags and string.” Aschenbrenner assembled the collected structures into a 10 × 25-foot mixed-media mural, first exhibited at the Glass Art Society conference in Tucson, Arizona, in 1983, and subsequently hung at the New York Experimental Glass Workshop in New York City, where Hollister viewed it. An editorial note preceding this article observes that the Neues Glas editorial team was divided about the aesthetic merits of the Damaged Bone Series; Hollister maintained an “overwhelmingly positive view of Aschenbrenner’s works.” A brief artist’s statement by Michael Aschenbrenner is included. Incl. illus. (1 b/w, 1 color) of work by Michael Aschenbrenner.

Hollister reviews works by Michael Glancy and Japanese artist Kyohei Fujita on view at the Heller Gallery (71 Spring Street, New York City). It is Fujita’s first New York show, though “for some years his elegant glass boxes have been widely known.” Ranging from “fist-sized tubes” to 25-pound hexagons and octagons and combining colored glass chips and gold and silver foil between layers of glass, Fujita’s boxes have a “dense sculptural solidity” that is best experienced when viewed individually. Closer inspection reveals the lid of each box to have been ground to fit in a specific position and to vary in transparency when held to the light. In Glancy’s current explorations of electroforming sandblasted glass, the metal “now overpowers the glass.” Color is at the forefront of these works, both in the “canary yellow” interior of the glass and in the “neon blue, pink and other garish patinas” applied to the metal. Incl. illus. (1 b/w) of work by Michael Glancy.

Klaus Moje and Isgard Moje-Wohlgemuth of Germany had already gained renown for decorated vases when artist Erwin Eisch introduced them to the American studio glass movement in 1967. Moje first worked with glass in his father’s glass-cutting studio at age 16 and later received his master’s certificate in glass cutting and etching at Hadamar Polytechnic. Since 1975, Moje has worked in the mosaic glass technique, cutting and fusing colored glass bars to create boldly patterned panels in center-slumped geometric shapes such as ovals, circles, and octagons. Hollister prefers his simple curvilinear forms, which “allowed the bolder patterns to dazzle and the softer tones to glow,” to the more complex polygonal ones, which may “recall an ashtray or trendy table centerpiece.” In 1982, Moje relocated to Australia to set up the glass workshop at the Canberra School of Art. Wary of repeating his German technical school training and influenced by teaching at Pilchuck Glass School, Moje “emphasizes the development of an artistic idea” in his classes. Incl. illus. (1 b/w, 3 color) of Klaus Moje and his work. Editor’s note: Paul Hollister recorded research material related to this article. See linked artist page for Bard Graduate Center transcript of audio recording held by The Rakow Research Library of The Corning Museum of Glass: Klaus Moje Interview with Paul Hollister, February 7 and 8, 1984 (Corning BIB ID:168459).

Glass America 1985 (January 5–27, 1985) is the New York Heller Gallery’s third survey of glass “in its inherited and brand-new forms.” Codirectors Douglas and Michael Heller selected 125+ pieces by 90 artists using techniques ranging from blowing, sandblasting, and lampworking to painting and mixed media. While work by such established artists as Howard Ben Tré, Dale Chihuly, Kent Ipsen, Mark Peiser, Paul Stankard, and Michael Taylor appears in the show, that of other long-standing makers does not in order “to make way for new trends,” exemplified by the audacious pieces of Hank Murta Adams. In this short article, Hollister briefly describes work by 13 more artists. Accompanying the exhibition are talks on connoisseurship and criticism by Michael Monroe of the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution; William Warmus, former assistant curator at The Corning Museum of Glass; Dan Dailey, head of glass at the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston; and contemporary glass collector Dr. Jerry Raphael. The New York Experimental Glass Workshop also held hot-glass demonstrations.

Hollister evaluates California artist Jay Musler’s oeuvre as expressing a particularly dark worldview. After studying glass at the California College of Arts and Crafts (1968–71), Musler blew production pieces for Maslach Art Glass near San Francisco (1972–81) while pursuing his own work. Musler saw possibilities for glass “to carry a message of sociological or environmental awareness.” Inspired by Indian baskets of the Northwest, he began creating ripped, jagged rims on bowl-shaped forms with a diamond saw. The application of sandblasting and oil paint produced “emotionally explosive vessels” that evoke abstract feelings of anger, violence, and despair through a “vocabulary of cuts, lacerations, spikes and stitchings that are suggestive but not literal.” Musler’s boat-shaped pieces and figural masklike sculptures continued to convey alienation and hopelessness, even when he was trying to escape such feelings (as in the Boat series). The artist’s recent mask forms achieve a complexity of form, imagery, and imagination that “seem to rekindle the remote flame” of the Flemish Renaissance painter Hieronymus Bosch: both explore “the same hierarchy of forces besetting the human condition.” Incl. illus. (2 b/w, 13 color) of Jay Musler and his work. Editor’s note: Paul Hollister recorded research material related to this article. See linked artist page for Bard Graduate Center transcript of audio recording held by The Rakow Research Library of The Corning Museum of Glass: Jay Musler Interview with Paul Hollister, October 11, 1984 (Corning BIB ID: 168398).

Fourteen large glass and mixed-media pieces by the jeweler, industrial designer, and sculptor Robert DuGrenier were on view in the artist’s solo exhibition at the New York Experimental Glass Workshop (February 28–March 23). Hollister briefly describes these pieces and places them in relation to DuGrenier’s previous work. While “too many” of the glass, metal, marble, mineral, and painted combinations “seem no more than perches for some outdoor grill or grotto conversation pieces,” “the all glass pieces” are more promising as they “seem to point the way to a glass sculpture of illusion.” Incl. illus. (1 b/w) of work by Robert DuGrenier.

Hollister opens this historically important article with a provocative setup: “Everyone knows that studio glass glassworking began officially in 1962, with Harvey Littleton’s necessity as the mother of invention—the small furnace—and Dominick Labino serving as a midwife.” But, he asks, “how many worshipers of the youth glass cult” know of American studio glass before that date? Hollister profiles in depth four “largely unknown” still-living makers who had been “working glass in innovative ways” in the United States decades before Littleton’s “landmark” 1962 workshop. The Swiss-born Maurice Heaton, still active at age 85, makes stained-glass window and wall panels, light fixtures, and tableware, among them “bowls, dishes, and platters in all shapes and sizes, whose enameled undersurfaces catch light like satellite antennae dishes.” Heaton’s processes include sieving powdered enamel onto flat glass, using templates and brushes to shape designs, and slumping glass in iron molds of his own making. The Chicago-based husband and wife team of Michael and Frances Higgins started working with fused enameled glass in the late 1940s, and by 1950, they were retailing production lines of glass plates through department and specialty stores. They spent six years designing for Dearborn Glass Company, creating lines of iridescent and lustre glass, and in the 1960s, they turned to making larger panels for screens and windows. The Higginses characteristically work by applying enamels to sheets of glass through silk-screen stencils, with multiple laminations. Hollister especially admires Edris Eckhardt’s innovative artistry and mastery of multiple techniques, “including vertical laminations; full sculptural casting by the cire perdue process; mixed-fusion—for which she invented a tool for drawing with hot glass; and a method for casting glass into bronze to create sculptures of the combined materials.” Eckhardt also rediscovered ancient methods of enclosing gold and silver foil between glass layers and perfected an inexpensive gypsum alternative to steel molds. All four makers have seen their pieces exhibited, published, and acquired by major museums, including The Corning Museum Glass, following their participation in the important survey show Glass 1959: A Special Exhibition of International Contemporary Glass. Yet none has “enjoyed the market available to almost any contemporary studio glassworker,” and Hollister laments that they remain largely unknown. Incl. illus. (6 b/w, 10 color) of Maurice Heaton, Frances Higgins, and Michael Higgins and of work by the Higginses and Edris Eckhardt. Editor’s note: Paul Hollister recorded research material related to this article. See linked artist pages for Bard Graduate Center transcript of audio recordings held by The Rakow Research Library of The Corning Museum of Glass: Edris Eckhardt and Frances Higgins Interview with Paul Hollister, April 28, 1984 (Corning BIB ID: 168553); and Edris Eckhardt Lecture, April 29, 1984 (Corning BIB ID: 168561).

The 15 large single vessels and clusters of smaller ones on view in Dale Chihuly’s solo show at the Charles Cowles Gallery in New York City (ended November 30, 1985) demonstrate that this veteran of the glass vanguard “has something new to say about the blown vessel form.” Alternately recalling “sea forms on some exotic shore,” surfaces “splashed with cottony white clouds overlaid with the rich orange and crimson of sunsets” or “giant clamshells,” the work is notable for its unusual color combinations, which are enhanced by the gallery’s “skillful lighting.” The show also includes several of Chihuly’s sketches. Drawn with “whirlwind spontaneity,” they augment the vessels and “hold their own as drawings.”

An exhibition on view at the Fifty/50 Gallery (ended January 22, 1985) is the first New York show for the Chicago-based husband-and-wife team Frances and Michael Higgins. Known since the late 1940s for their inventive home goods, tableware, and jewelry of fused and slumped glass, “they were not widely recognized as forerunners of the American studio glass movement” until recently. The show includes one-of-a-kind works from the height of their production in the 1950s as well as new pieces and selections on loan from collectors. All are decorated in “every imaginable technique,” including using silkscreen, chicken wire, and rolled paper to transfer patterns to the glass. Their work is popular with museums; The Corning Museum of Glass purchased a Michael Higgins box made from a single sheet of “folded” glass and a Frances Higgins vase constructed of fused glass “crumbs” held together by enameled glass frit from the show.

“The quality of material worked and the technical skill of its manipulation does not make it art,” Hollister proclaims in this pithy piece attempting to inject more criticality into the field of glass. Too often, he notes, aesthetic qualities are ascribed to the glassworker or glass object simply because the maker, collector, or critic is seduced by the material qualities of glass. As a counterpoint, Hollister proposes a six-point rubric for evaluating glass objects: size, quality, workmanship, consistency, comparison, and singularity. If each of these is in service to the overall concept and form of the piece and if the expression is singular, then, he maintains, “you are looking at a fine work in glass.” Incl. illus. (3 b/w) of work by Steven DeVries, William Gudenrath, and Karla Trinkley.

A study in contrasts, paperweights by Paul Stankard and “elegant glass boxes” by Kyohei Fujita were on view at the Heller Gallery (71 Greene Street, SoHo, ending April 27, 1986). Stankard’s “conventionally domed” paperweights depicting environmental scenes or botanical studies are meant to be viewed from multiple angles. For instance, from above Trailing Arbutus depicts flowers and leaves over sandy soil, while from below it shows small people “cavorting among the plant roots.” In contrast, Fujita’s glass boxes, which range from “no bigger than one’s hand to massive receptacles weighing 15 pounds or more,” feature confettilike surfaces formed by rolling thick glass bubbles in chips of colored glass and gold and silver leaf. Subsequently, the bubbles are blown into molds to give them their shape. The boxes’ lids are formed through the same process. Each box is accompanied by a wooden presentation box.

Recent work by 70+ artists was on view in this national invitational studio glass exhibition at West Virginia’s Huntington Galleries (later Huntington Museum of Art), June 15–November 9, 1986. For this well-illustrated catalogue, curator Eason Eige provides an introduction, and Hollister contributes the overview essay, “Studio Glass Movement.” In a separate insert, “Critique,” he reviews the show. Hollister’s main essay discusses the expansion of American studio glass from Harvey Littleton’s 1962 Toledo hot-glass workshop up through the present exhibition. He recounts the organization of the Huntington’s first national survey in 1976 (New American Glass: Focus West Virginia) and then uses examples from subsequent invitationals and the current show to illustrate how artists have continued to develop and refine techniques of blowing, casting, slumping, sagging, working flat, and employing mixed media. Hollister concludes by suggesting results have been mixed, with technique sometimes triumphing over artistic imagination, and noting the deleterious effect of the market’s omnipresent pressure to produce novelty. It is up to the second generation of glass artists, now “firmly established,” to “determine the future strength or deterioration of American studio glass.” In “Critique,” Hollister praises a number of “notable” pieces in this exhibition, identifies a few that are interesting but do not quite work, and excoriates “a lot of plain junk.” He offers scathing assessments of pieces by artists from whom he expected better or “did not bother to send their best work,” either out of ignorance or overcommitment. Hollister warns that this trend has led studio glass to an important crossroads: going forward, it “can carve its accepted mark in the bench of Art, or it can slide away with the refuse of last season’s party, and be epitaphed as a footnote to a minor variant in the history of decorative arts—Subdivision: Glass.” Incl. illus. (52 b/w, 22 color) of work by featured artists.

A reprint of Hollister’s insert “Critique” for the New American Glass: Focus 2 West Virginia catalogue, plus 3 b/w illustrations of pieces by Stephen Dale Edwards, Flora Mace and Joey Kirkpatrick, and William Carlson.

Selman remarks upon Hollister’s diverse research and writings about glass history, highlighting his unprecedented scholarship on paperweights. A specialist dealer and a publisher, Selman credits Irene Hollister for urging her husband to write The Encyclopedia of Glass Paperweights (1969), generally regarded as the first serious, comprehensive study of the topic. Selman announces the 1986 reprint and lists other books by Hollister: the novel Fine Tooth Comb (1947), Glass Paperweights of the New-York Historical Society (1974), Paperweights—An Old Craft Revived (1975), and Paperweights: “Flowers which clothe the meadows” (1978), coauthored with Dwight Lanmon for The Corning Museum of Glass show. Hollister also catalogued paperweight collections at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Brooklyn Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Old Sturbridge Village, and the Smithsonian Institution. Selman references Hollister’s inheritance of paperweights collected by his parents (Marion Hengerer Hollister and his stepfather, J. Cheney Wells) and notes his work as an artist in oils and pastels, including 18 one-man shows. In closing, the author emphasizes Hollister’s desire to write about contemporary studio glass, quoting his opinion: “I think it’s a shame that most glass collectors don’t know about and appreciate the remarkable work being done today.” Incl. illus. (1 b/w).

Hollister marks the 25th birthday of the American studio glass movement—dated from Harvey Littleton’s 1962 Toledo workshop—with reflections upon its achievements and weaknesses to date and forecasts for the future. He discusses the excitement of blowing hot glass in small furnaces outside factory settings, Littleton’s innovation, often executed with more spontaneity than skill. The early years saw many vase forms, gradually increasing in size and complexity. Hollister lauds Littleton’s sculptural pieces and foundational work by Dale Chihuly, James Carpenter, Richard Marquis, Joel Philip Myers, and others. Despite “little historical memory of glass made before 1962,” he sees “great progress” in relearning old techniques along with developing new ones. He mentions processes used by specific artists including: casting and sandcasting by Hank Adams, Howard Ben Tré, and Mark Peiser; controlled breaking by Concetta Mason and Kreg Kallenberger; filet-de-verre by Toots Zynsky; graal work by Leonard DiNardo; laminations by William Carlson and Michael Pavlik; lampwork by Ginny Ruffner and Paul Stankard; pâte de verre by Doug Anderson, Rolanda Scott, and Karla Trinkley; sandblasting by K. William LeQuier and Barry Sautner; slumping by Valerie Arber, Ruth Brockman, and Richard Lalonde; and the use of vitrolite by Rick Bernstein and Henry Halem. Often makers use multiple techniques in one object, a trend that Hollister predicts will certainly continue, along with work in mixed media. Such practices are apparent in recent pieces by Tom Patti, Catherine Zurchin, Richard Yelle, and James Watkins, among others. He posits that “interchanged materials are making work shown as craft and work exhibited as Art indistinguishable texture for texture, material for material,” perhaps as a means to move away from the “debilitating” craft-versus-art debate. There is an increase in large-scale sculpture and installations in architecture, although a lag in stained glass. Hollister also discusses galleries and notes the U.S. impact on work in Japan and Australia. He concludes that there exists great potential—and great pitfalls to avoid—as studio glass moves “beyond its promising quarter-century into maturity.” Incl. illus. (5 b/w, 5 color) of work by Michael Aschenbrenner, David Burton, Mary Van Cline, Stephen Paul Day, Kathy Jackson, Don Shepherd, Susan Stinsmuehlen[-Amend], Molly Stone, and Janusz Walentynowicz.

Part history of lampwork, part biography of Paul Stankard, this article chronicles the evolution of both this small-scale glassworking technique and Stankard’s artwork made using it, culminating with a discussion of the columnar “botanical” pieces that mark his entry into the “mainstream of studio glass.” Utilized for centuries to make beads, baubles, and scientific apparatus, lampworking (named for the oil-fueled, cotton-wicked torch used early on) is among the least well-known glassworking processes and, shrouded in secrecy, has not generally figured into the trajectory of American studio glass. Stankard’s commitment to excellence and willingness to share his techniques, including an unprecedented paperweight demonstration in Wheaton Village in Millville, New Jersey, in May 1986 and a five-day workshop (the first of its kind) at the Penland School of Crafts (later Penland School of Craft), have been crucial in securing wider acceptance for the technique. Incl. illus. (3 b/w, 5 color) of work by Paul Stankard and Jim Shaw.

Sixty-five pieces of glass from the collection of Dorothy and George Saxe representing a “time capsule for the ambitious and largely successful international studio glasswork of the 1980s” were on view at the American Craft Museum [formerly the Museum of Contemporary Crafts, later the Museum of Arts and Design]. The collection, assembled as the studio movement “was in its young adulthood in the United States,” demonstrates the field’s development since the period dominated by glass blowing in the 1970s by including works in a range of techniques. A fourth of the pieces are castings; also included are multilayered blown pieces, pâte de verre, and the laminated cast- or plate-glass works that have “become a mark of the 1980s.” Hollister notes that the pace of change in glass is swift, and several of the included glassworkers “have already moved on to new and in some cases radically different concepts.”

Incl. illus. Editor’s note: Paul Hollister recorded research material related to this article. See linked artist pages for Bard Graduate Center transcript of audio recordings held by The Rakow Research Library of The Corning Museum of Glass: Paul Hollister Lecture, November 1, 1987 (Corning BIB ID: 168493).

Hollister pays tribute to the glass artist Dominick Labino, who died in 1987. Hollister expresses the widespread appreciation for Labino’s foundational role in the studio glass movement since 1962. He notes Labino’s vital influence as an inventor, innovator, educator, provocateur, and inspiration to emerging and long-standing practitioners. Incl. illus. (2 b/w, 1 color) of Dominick Labino and his work.

A range of craft media was on view at the American Craft Fair at New York City’s Park Avenue Armory (May 1–3, 1987) including work by 11 glassworkers. Hollister briefly comments on select work in metal, wood, textile, and mixed media before focusing on glass in the bulk of his review. The show’s glass was juried by Andrew Magdanz and notable for including the “work of several west coast glassworkers less exhibited in the nation’s supposed culture center.” Hollister enthusiastically describes and praises the work of seven artists for qualities including skill, humor, imagination, use of color, and design sense; pronounces another’s technique immature; and considers the rest “less interesting.” Incl. illus. (1 b/w, 3 color) of work by Robert Levin, Richard Royal, Josh Simpson, and Walter White.

The exhibition Sculpture in Crystal at the Heller Gallery (71 Greene Street, SoHo) is the result of a “radical experiment” conceived by Paul Schulze, the former design director of Steuben Glass in Corning, New York, to give three artists, David Dowler, Eric Hilton, and Peter Aldridge, free access to the company’s glass and glassworking facilities, as well as financial support. The result, 24 one-of-a-kind pieces, challenge accepted notions of Steuben glasswork. Most are free-standing sculptures, and nearly all incorporate techniques that interrupt the pristine crystal matrix for which Steuben is known, allowing the artists to sculpt the glass’s interior dimensions. Aldridge’s “geometrical forms [are] engraved with lines of mathematical precision,” while “the work of Mr. Dowler and Mr. Hilton involved deeper engraving, rough casting, slumping, sandblasting, and the intentional introduction of bubbles.” As a result, the pieces manipulate light in a way that, Hollister notes, “is simply uncanny.” Incl. prices.

Pâte de verre is an ancient technique in which a glass paste, made from powdered glass and a binder, is melted and fired in a mold and then finished. This scholarly article gives a history of the technique from its revival in late nineteenth-century France, starting with Henri Cros at Sèvres in the 1880s; through its adoption by other French, American, and Japanese glassworkers during the art nouveau and art deco periods; to its continued innovation at the time of Hollister’s writing. Hollister discusses in detail the work and methods of various pâte de verre masters, moving methodically and in chronological sequence from Cros to contemporary artists using the technique in innovative ways. He also provides a select bibliography. Incl. illus. (11 color) of work by Doug Anderson, Argy-Rousseau, Rachel Berwick, Henri Cros, François Décorchemont, Georges Despret, Diana Hobson, Liz Marx, Karla Trinkley, and Amalric Walter.

Hollister juxtaposes work by two artists with certain formal similarities but reliant on very different techniques. Jon Kuhn encases laminated cores of color in transparent optical glass, producing sculptural blocks or columns with internal abstract imagery visible on all sides. Linear designs and patterns emerge out of his fascination with weaving, musical notation, and electronic circuitry. Other sources include photographs, petroglyphs, mineral treasures, and ancient wall fragments. Kuhn’s process is meticulous, and his color combinations are unusual in studio glass. Carol Cohen started out as a painter but shifted toward sculpture in the early 1970s. She began making forms from cut and welded sheet steel or by stacking welded strips of steel into contoured figures. In 1982 Cohen started to assemble topographic maps of her contoured steel designs by drawing on sheets of clear lexan or glass stacked with half-inch spacers in between, a technique familiar in industry but “new to studio glass sculpture.” Evenly spaced layers of sheet glass then became a new canvas, providing painted objects “the illusion of a three-dimensional form.” Hollister notes that “Cohen’s work has been incorrectly equated” with that of Dana Zámečníkova, whose creations are meant to be viewed from a single angle, whereas Cohen’s are multidirectional. Incl. illus. (7 b/w, 6 color) of work by Carol Cohen and Jon Kuhn. Editor’s note: Paul Hollister recorded research material related to this article. See linked artist pages for Bard Graduate Center transcripts of audio recordings held by The Rakow Research Library of The Corning Museum of Glass: Jon Kuhn Self-interview for Paul Hollister, c. 1988 (Corning BIB ID: 168371); and Carol Cohen Lecture [recorded by] Paul Hollister, c. 1988 (Corning BIB ID: 167958).

Hollister discusses the work of 45 American artists on display in Glass America 1989 at the Heller Gallery in New York City (January 7–29, 1989). Organized a decade after Heller’s Glass America 1978 exhibition, the current show displays two to three pieces by each artist, “affording a broad view of their most recent work” that “leaves no doubt that studio glass is alive and well.” Casting reigns as “the most popular” technique, evidenced by Hank Adams’s bold pieces wrapped in patinated copper wire, Ann Weighall’s “rural vignettes,” Doug Anderson’s refined pâte de verre, and Mark Peiser’s finely faceted pieces. Hollister lists several “established” artists showing beautiful work with “no surprises,” including William Carlson, David Huchthausen, Joel Philip Myers, Michael Pavlik, Michael Taylor, and Steven Weinberg. Some, like Tom Patti and Michael Glancy, provide intriguing variations of familiar forms, while others offer fresh approaches. Hollister remarks on Vladimira Klumpar’s templelike blocks of fused glass and gold leaf, Robert Carlson’s blown and painted pieces, Jon Kuhn’s “mysterious monoliths,” Carol Cohen’s glass “non-box,” and Bernie D’Onofrio’s still-life objects. Contrasts abound: Peter Aldridge’s geometric forms in clear glass; Ginny Ruffner’s ingenious Glass America Coupon, albeit somewhat dulled by sandblasting; and Deborah Czeresko’s blown flasks bearing Stephan P. Day’s historical scenes and portraits. Especially original are Dan Clayman’s castings in jade-green glass, incised and bordered with metal. However, “the greatest surprise of the show is Dale Chihuly, whose large, blown pieces are as bold in coloring as they are in execution.” Incl. illus. (1 b/w) of work by Ginny Ruffner.

Hollister enthusiastically reviews the exhibition Lalique: A Century of Glass for a Modern World at the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York City (August 29–September 30, 1989). The show highlights the oeuvre of renown French designer Rene Lalique (1860–1945), which Hollister describes as spanning the stylistic categories of neoclassicism, Japonisme, art nouveau, and art deco. The exhibition also features work by his successors, including daughter Suzanne Lalique Haviland, son Marc Lalique, and granddaughter Marie Claire Lalique. Objects on view range from vases, perfume bottles, and jewelry to decorative friezes, tableware, and cocktail shakers. Nicholas M. Dawes curated the show, mounted by Jerome Lawton and Thomas Hoving of DesignGroup.

Glass America 1990 (January 6–8, 1990) is the Heller Gallery’s 11th national exhibition of American studio glass and the first major glass show of the 1990s. Over time, gallerists Douglas and Michael Heller have reduced the number of invited artists to showcase work “they consider of the highest quality or most innovative.” This year’s exhibition features 45 artists represented by three pieces each, composing a show that has “plenty to see.” Hollister briefly highlights 15 makers’ works, among them Dan Dailey’s and Lino Tagliapietra’s new vase series and William Morris’s blown and textured forms. He enjoys Sydney Cash’s “five-foot-tall optically kinetic sculptures” and Paul Stankard’s “delicate botanical studies.” Carol Cohen’s pieces are “whimsical or terrifying,” such as a “mystery box in which a lifesize raven tears apart a human head.” Vladimira Klumpar’s stacked and fused forms suggest “pre-columbian monuments,” Concetta Mason’s sculptural work is both organic and high-tech, and Judy Bally Jensen’s reverse-painted glass pieces are increasingly baroque. Jon Kuhn’s monoliths deploy “laminated slices of glass of differing refractive indexes,” while Robert Carlson’s chalices feature painted three-dimensional figures. John Brito’s recycled mirrors mix paint and collage, and Liz Marx’s pâte de verre castings derive from real furniture. John Lewis combines cast green glass and copper for his tables and container forms, while James Watkins casts textured vessels in pâte de cristal, which, when cut and fused, are “Cubism updated.” Incl. illus. (2 b/w) of work by Robert Carlson and Michael Glancy.

Venetian glass has been prized in Europe, especially in England, since the sixteenth century. American artists began to explore Venetian glass traditions in the 1950s, when the painter and sculptor Robert Willson went to Murano to work with the master glassworkers at Fratelli Toso and Alfredo Barbini. The next American artist to go to Murano was Dale Chihuly, whose experience in the Venini factory (1968–69) continues to inform his work, sometimes quite explicitly, as in his Venetian series begun in the late 1980s. Richard Marquis followed Chihuly to Venini the following year (1969–70) to improve his technique. During the 1970s, spending a year in Murano became almost de rigueur for American glass artists, a story Hollister concludes in part 2 of this article, published in the next issue of Neues Glas. Incl. illus. (2 b/w, 10 color) of work by Ercole Barovier, Dale Chihuly, Richard Marquis, and Robert Willson.

Hollister continues the history, begun in the previous issue of Neues Glas, of American studio glass artists traveling to Murano to work with Venetian glass masters, often with support from the Fulbright-Hayes exchange program. James Carpenter, Marvin Lipofsky, Dan Dailey, Michael Nourot, Benjamin Moore, Douglass Navarra, Toots Zynsky, and Tina Aufiero all spent time working and designing in various Venetian glass factories between 1970 and 1985. Hollister describes their experiences and the imprint left upon each artist’s work. He reports that, overall, the Americans benefited more than their Italian hosts at factories like Venini, whose “expectation” that American imagination would breathe new life into traditional product lines was “largely disappointed.” “The Americans didn’t bring much, but they took away inspiration that elevated the whole look of blown studio glass.” Incl. illus. (2 b/w, 10 color) of work by Tina Aufiero, James Carpenter, Dan Dailey, Marvin Lipofsky, Benjamin Moore, Douglas Navarra, Michael Nourot, and Lino Tagliapietra. Editor’s note: Paul Hollister recorded research material related to this article. See linked artist page for Bard Graduate Center transcript of audio recording held by The Rakow Research Library of The Corning Museum of Glass: Dan Dailey Self-interview for Paul Hollister, c. 1989–90 (Corning BIB ID: 168376).

Hollister presents an overview of the history of American studio glass. Harvey Littleton and Dominick Labino gave the movement its “official beginning” in 1962 at a pair of workshops in Toledo, Ohio, where they effectively demonstrated that a single person could work hot glass alone, outside the factory system. Littleton began teaching glass at the University of Wisconsin-Madison that same year, a time when “interest in glass as a material to be worked exploded across America.” Academic glass programs multiplied quickly and major exhibitions fostered awareness. The studio glass movement’s “first decade (1962–72) was primarily a learning period,” while “the 1970s saw the mastery of technique.” Recent years evince both uneven mixed-media work and exciting resuscitation of materials and techniques. Hollister discusses the work of several artists—with particular attention to Dale Chihuly, Michael Glancy, Tom Patti, and Paul Stankard—in order to convey but a few of the “inventive approaches” American artists have taken since studio glass “started from scratch in 1962.” The article is annotated for slide-lecture use. Incl. illus. (17 b/w) of work by featured artists.

Hollister extols Michael Glancy’s work at the Heller Gallery in New York City for its “robust fullness of form, subtleties of color, rich interior casing[s], and meticulous surface textures—the sculptural completeness of each piece.” Although previously Glancy’s electroformed metal-and-glass vessels “were sometimes at odds” with the slablike pedestals upon which they stood, here the patterns on the two-dimensional bases successfully reinterpret those on the three-dimensional forms. Hollister praises the artist’s “technical wizardry” and lauds future design possibilities for his work. Incl. illus. (1 b/w) of work by Michael Glancy.

In this lengthy feature article, Hollister profiles the career of James Carpenter from his early work as a studio glass artist to his later design practice, which includes the creation of large-scale projects with prominent architects. Carpenter entered the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) to study architecture, but intrigued by the “possibilities of transforming and directing light and color through glass,” he began working with Dale Chihuly in RISD’s glass program. During the1970s, Carpenter collaborated with Chihuly on several large environmental installations, designed vessels for Venini in Murano, and created one of Steuben’s best-selling art glass objects during a six-month residency there. Throughout, he continued to experiment with the way glass transmits light. In 1978 he established his own office, James Carpenter Design Associates. With a team of architects, industrial designers, and engineers, he undertakes architectural commissions for glass installations. The firm’s work often involves the use of dichroic glass to project two-colored light into architectural space, as in the 35-foot dome for the Portland Center for the Performing Arts, a breakthrough project in 1984. The firm collaborated with Edward Larabee Barnes on chapel windows in Indianapolis, Indiana, and Manhasset, New York, and also took up more international work. Carpenter pushes the boundaries of glass technology, and “architects in many countries are calling on him to enliven interior spaces and bring their buildings into light.” Incl. illus. (3 b/w, 8 color) of James Carpenter, Dale Chihly, and Seaver Leslie; and work by Bob Anglemier, Edward Larrabee Barnes, Barton Myers & Associates, BOOR/A Architects, Denton Vacuum, Inc., Kate Elliott, ELS Design Group (later ELS Architecture and Urban Design), James Carpenter, Janet Fink, John Depp, Inc., Richard Kress, Neil Logan, Luke Lowings, Vera Marjonovich, Daniel Rieser, Vitteta Group. Editor’s note: Paul Hollister recorded research material related to this article. See linked artist page for Bard Graduate Center transcript of audio recording held by The Rakow Research Library of The Corning Museum of Glass: James Carpenter Interview with Paul Hollister, c. 1991 (Corning BIB ID: 168555).

The article is based upon Hollister’s 1984 presentation to the Landmarks Preservation Commission of New York. He makes an impassioned plea to save the  historic cast-glass windows in the Coty Building at 714 Fifth Avenue, New York City, of c. 1912. Hollister describes the façade, featuring the work of French designer René Lalique, as unique and the only surviving glass shop front of its size and quality in the United States. Incl. illus. (2 b/w) of work by René Lalique.

In a lively narrative, Hollister relates how he formed his extensive library on glass over four decades. He purchased primarily from book dealers and booksellers but also via auctions and library deaccessions. His collection ranges chronologically and globally “from ancient Egypt through the studio movement,” including topics in chemistry and technology. By his own account, he acquired most of the nineteenth-century books on glass published in English and French and some in Italian. He discusses selling his library to Bard Graduate Center, newly established in 1993. Incl. illus. (3 b/w).

Hollister reviews the exhibition Stanislav Libenský and Jaroslava Brychtová: A 40-Year Collaboration in Glass at The Corning Museum of Glass (April 23–October 16, 1994). Corning organized the show with the Umĕleckoprůmyslové Museum v Praze (Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague). Brychtová followed her father into sculpture and glasswork, while Libenský began as a painter before switching to glass. The exhibition includes the artists’ solo work—such as Brychtová’s pâte de verre reliefs and Libenský’s delicate acid-etched and enameled pictures on thin glass vessels from the mid-1940s—as well as their collaborations, which began in the mid-1950s. Hollister describes the couple’s cast pieces as demonstrating “a revolutionary approach to the concept of space in sculpture.” He assesses the two artists as “the best sculptors in glass” and analyzes their work in detail to argue his case. Incl. illus. (7 color) of work by Jaroslava Brychtová and Stanislav Libenský.

Jane Shadel Spillman, curator of American glass at The Corning Museum of Glass, writes this obituary of Paul Hollister, researcher, writer, lecturer, and artist, who died in Hanover, New Hampshire, on July 2, 2004. Spillman discusses his education, work as a painter, and many accomplishments as a glass historian and critic, noting his extensive publications, curatorial work, and teaching. She also provides a full bibliography of his writings on glass, 136 entries, which include books, book chapters, and numerous articles in publications such as American Craft, Collector Editions, Journal of Glass Studies, Neues Glas, New Work, and the New York Times. Native to New York City, Hollister graduated from Harvard College in 1941 with a degree in fine arts. As a painter he tended toward semiabstract oils and later pastels. By the 1950s, his work appeared in solo exhibitions and group shows at galleries and venues such as the Whitney Museum. His paintings are in private and public collections. Hollister attributed his interest in glass to the antique paperweights collected by his mother, Marion Hengerer Hollister, and stepfather, J. Cheney Wells. In 1969, he published The Encyclopedia of Glass Paperweights, a landmark in the field. He additionally coauthored Paperweights: “Flowers which clothe the meadows” with Dwight P. Lanmon, the catalogue for The Great Paperweight Show at The Corning Museum of Glass in 1978 (he also consulted on the exhibition). By the 1970s, he was deeply interested in contemporary studio glass, about which he continued to write prolifically. Hollister edited the Glass Club Bulletin from 1975 to 1985. His additional research interests included London’s Crystal Palace of 1851 and the work of Frederick Carder. Hollister frequently lectured at museums and glass organizations, among them The Corning Museum of Glass, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the New-York Historical Society. From 1984 to 1993, he was adjunct associate professor in the master’s program in decorative arts at the Cooper Hewitt Museum, and in 1993 and 1994, he was adjunct professor at Bard Graduate Center. Hollister also donated much of his glass research archive to Corning’s Rakow Research Library during the 1990s. Spillman observes, “Paul had high standards for his own research and that of his students. His acerbic sense of humor frightened some, but he was always generous with his research and helpful to those whom he regarded as serious students.” Glass artist William Gudenrath contributed a personal appreciation of Hollister, noting his wide-ranging interests and skill as a raconteur. Incl. illus. (1 b/w) of Paul Hollister.

Andrew Page, editor of Glass, discusses the importance of Hollister’s writing on contemporary glass. He notes the particular influence of the New York Times reviews during the 1970s and ’80s, which brought studio glass to the attention of a wider audience. Page observes, “Hollister’s writing helped to place the contemporary work into historical context, and his strong opinions of what work had achieved a level of quality helped shape the nascent art movement.” Incl. illus. (b/w).

Catherine Whalen writes this obituary of Irene McClean Hollister, philanthropist, advocate for glass scholarship, and active member of the glass community, who passed away on February 22, 2016, in Hanover, New Hampshire. She and her late husband, Paul M. Hollister (1919–2004), the noted glass historian, critic, lecturer, and painter, lived and worked in New York City for many years. Irene Hollister was the founding administrator of the Association for Computing Machinery. During her 26-year tenure as director of membership and corporate relations, she oversaw the organization’s growth from 8,000 to 75,000+ members and developed working relationships with computer science leaders in government, education, and research. Upon her retirement, the Hollisters traveled widely, frequently visiting private and public glass collections. Following her husband’s death in 2004, Irene Hollister stewarded his legacy, especially by making his work available for scholarship on the history of glass. She contributed substantially to his archive at The Rakow Research Library of The Corning Museum of Glass, which includes research files, ephemera, photographs, slides, transparencies, and audio recordings of lectures as well as interviews with studio glass artists and collectors. She also generously supported Bard Graduate Center, where Paul Hollister taught in the early 1990s, inspiring many students to study glass. She established The Paul and Irene Hollister Lectures on Glass and donated her husband’s outstanding library on glass and his slide collection, including his personal photographs of studio glass artists, to Bard Graduate Center. Additionally, she worked with Associate Professor Catherine Whalen to anthologize Paul Hollister’s writings on studio glass. Incl. illus. (1 color) of Irene Hollister.

A reprise of Hollister’s article on Joel Philip Myers in Neues Glas, no. 3 (July/September 1983).