Wiener Museum Glass

Two weeks ago, I discovered a new museum only fifteen miles south of my place - the Wiener

Museum of Decorative Arts in Davie, FL.  It is the private collection of a New York

businessman, and I found it very interesting.  It features glass art of the 20th century and

British ceramics of the 19th century, not dishes and cups but statues and vases.

The above is a "Wall of Persians" by Dale Chihuly of Seattle.

A "Persian" by Dale Chihuly.  The modern art glass movement began when Harvey

Littleton, a professor of art at University of Wisconsin - Madison experimented with

making a kiln which could be constructed and used almost anywhere.  One of his\students was
Dale Chihuly, who has now become the most famous glass artist in the world.  Making glass

is, by its nature, a group endeavor, since one person cannot do all the processes alone.

Chihuily works with a large workshop of colleagues and assistants.  He frequently uses

old iron molds, which he finds in abandoned factories, and pulls molten glass through 

the opening.  These pieces were made with a mold for making optical glass.

Chihuly has worked to make ever larger pieces, and these "Macchia" are a good example.

No one had ever made such large pieces of blown glass before.  These are three to five

feet in diameter.  Remember, they are made from a bubble of molten glass which is

gradually enlarged, then opened up and spun around at the end of the pipe so gravity

helps pull it open and out.  You can imagine the weight, so several people help support the

blowpipe and puntee.  Large iron tongs help open them and create the curved lips.

Over the years, Chihuly has made many macchia in many colors; most have a lip of a 

contrasting color both for visual effect and also to make the very rough edge of the

glass, which has been broken off the blowpipe, into a very smooth edge.  The other

colors are added by putting pieces of colored glass rods on an iron table and rolling

the molten glass bubble onto the pieces and picking them up.

Three large macchia.  Seen in a flat, even sunlight or artificial light, the bowls are

rather plain, but when dramatically lit, as here, they become magical.

A large macchia with blue exterior, pink interior, and a yellow lip.  This was

four feet in diameter.

Three Macchia bowls.

A yellow, red, orange, and brown Macchia bowl.

Three large macchia.  The one on the top left was particularly interesting and

beautiful, with soft blues and greens creating a sea-foam appearance.

A Macchia in dark blue.

From the 15th century until Chihuly, the most famous glassblowers lived on the

island of Murano in Venice.  Venetian glass was the most famous in the world.

The glass workers were required to live and work there because their extremely

hot furnaces, going day and night, were deemed a fire hazard.

Over the years, Chihuly has worked in Murano to learn from the Italians, and

Italian glassblowers have come to Seattle to work with Chihuly, and they have

influenced and stimulated each other.  One of the Italian artists

suggested to Chihuly the use of cast-glass cherub figures, which the Italians

had used for centuries.  Chihuly then incorporated a number of them into his

works for several years.  This is one of them.

Chihuly works in many forms; this is an example of his nested bowls.

He used the iron optical molds to make these bowls, ranging in size from very

large to medium to several small ones.  The bowls are similar, but not identical.

A second glass artist, whose works are featured in the musem, is Toots Zimsky.

She works not by blowing glass, but by fusing hundreds of thin colored glass rods

into forms.  Mary Ann Toots Zynsky was born in 1951 and raised in Massachusetts.
  She received her bachelor of fine arts in 1973 at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in Providence.  There, she was one of a group of pioneering artists studying with Dale Chihuly,
who made studio glass a worldwide phenomenon.  In 1980, Zynsky became assistant director
 and head of the hot shop at the New York Experimental Glass Workshop in New York City,
which is now known as UrbanGlass and located in Brooklyn.

Toots Zynsky worked with a friend to develop a machine to draw glass rods into

thin filaments, which she then fuses into forms such as this bowl.

Zynsky's fused rod bowls are her most famous works, but she also creates

installations and other forms of glass art.

Toots Zynsky.  A bowl of green grass filaments.

Stephen Rolfe Powell is an American glass artist based at Centre College  in Danville, KY.
He creates elaborately colored three foot glass vessels incorporating murrine.

The earliest of the glass pieces were created by French artist Rene Lalique.

René Lalique (1860 - 1945) was a French glass designer known for his creations of glass art, 

perfume bottles, vases, jewelery, chandeliers, clocks and automobile hood ornaments

Lalique was best known for his creations in glass art. In the 1920s, he became noted for 

his work in the Art Deco style. He was responsible for the walls of lighted glass and elegant

 colored glass columns which filled the dining room and "grand salon" of the SS Normandie

 and the interior fittings, cross, screens, reredos and font of St. Matthew's Church

 at Millbrook in Jersey (Lalique's "Glass Church")

Lalique crteated unique pieces, like this "Rooster" for wealthy clients.

Lalique's "Totem Vase"

But Lalique also wanted to create beautiful glass objects which ordinary people

could buy at moderate prices.  This "Nereid Vase" was made in a mold, and thus

many copies could be quickly and easily made and sold to a mass market.

Lalique, "Dancer" in Art Deco style.

William Morris was first hired as truck driver for the art school where Chihuly taught.
He became interested in what was going on and learned to blow glass.  Eventually he
became an independent artist and teacher.  This is the "Stag Vase" by Morris.

Brenna Baker is the founder and director of Hollywood, FL, Hot Glass.  She began her
career at the age of 14, learning the technical and aesthetic foundations of glass in Corning,
a town synonymous with glass art.  She spent a year working in Murano, Italy, under the
tutelage of Pino Signoretto, one of the greatest glass artists in Italy.


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