More than 50 years ago, artist Harvey Littleton first explored the movement of molten glass work, taking it from the factory into the studio, and demonstrating the technique at the Toledo Museum of Art.
Almost a decade ago, the museum introduced the world to its very own state-of-the-art Glass Pavilion, a testament to Toledo’s significant contribution to the glass movement.
Some fun facts about the Toledo Museum Glass Pavilion’s on-site glass technique studio:
■ Employs one full-time master instructor, and 10 part-time or contract instructors
■ The studio hosts about 70 workshops and classes per year and gives more than 600 demos annually
■ The studio has two furnaces, each holding 1,480 lbs of molten glass
■ Furnaces run at 2,150 degrees Fahrenheit
■ The studio has 277 active professional studio users
Those two historical moments in the glass movement, along with many others, will be celebrated through Hot Spot: Contemporary Glass From Private Collections, a five-month exhibition of 80 glass pieces at the pavilion. The show opens Friday and remains up through Sept. 18.
Although it will showcase contemporary studio glass from around the globe, the exhibition focuses solely on pieces from private collectors, said Jutta Page, TMA’s senior curator of glass and decorative art.
“We are not amending this show with works from our own collection. This is really all about the collectors,” Page said. “Most of [the pieces] have not seen the light of day since they were made by the artist because they were purchased by the collectors, so it’s going to be a real discovery for people.”
Page said she sought out local collectors who have acquired pieces for their own collections from North America, Europe, and especially Australia. Some of the collectors have agreed to bequeath those pieces to the museum.
They run the gamut of glass making techniques, including pieces that focus on reflective light; delicate, flame-worked pieces such as fragile orchids created by African-American artist Debora Moore; and kiln-cast sculptures, including Light In, a piece by celebrated European glass artist Ann Wolff.
Another technique that will be displayed through glass at the show is a piece by Japanese artist Kimiake Higuchi, who is famous for creating raspberry vases using a technique called pate-de-verre, a process of pressing crushed glass on the inner surface of a negative mold.
The artworks will be separated by category at the show: the human figure, animals and plants, landscapes, vessels, the spirit world, abstracts, and outer space.
Littleton, a ceramics instructor at the University of Wisconsin who had a keen interest in glasswork as an art medium, conducted glass-blowing workshops in a garage studio at the museum in 1962, and, with the help of Toledo artist and scientist Dominick Labino, built an experimental glass-blowing furnace. It led five years later to the construction of a studio at TMA designed to teach glass technique — the first of its kind.
The exhibition celebrates the 10th anniversary of the museum’s 76,000-square foot pavilion, which sits across from the museum on Monroe Street, and was opened to the public in August 2006. Designed by Japanese architects SANAA Ltd., the $30 million facility boast both 10,600 square feet of exhibition space and a glass creation studio with furnaces used by both artists and students.
IF YOU GO
What: Hot Spot: Contemporary Glass From Private Collections
Where: The Toledo Museum of Art’s Glass Pavilion
When: Opens Friday and runs through Sept. 18
Cost: The exhibition is free
Special events: Jutta Page, senior curator of glass and decorative art, will give a free curator talk about the exhibition at 2 p.m. Saturday in the GlasSalon of the Glass Pavilion. On the last weekend of the exhibition (date and time not yet scheduled), a celebration of the Glass Pavilion’s 10th anniversary will be held, and will include the launch of a new book published this year by TMA: The Glass Pavilion/Toledo Museum of Art. The coffee table book about the history and architecture of the building is expected to be available Aug. 1, and is written by art and architecture historian Richard H. Putney, who was on the architect selection committee for the pavilion, architect and Bowling Green State University professor Katerina Rüedi Ray, and Toledo Museum of Art senior curator of glass and decorative arts Jutta Page.
Today the facility is not only used for its permanent collection and special showings such as Hot Spot, but instructors offer about 70 workshops and classes, and give more than 600 glass-working demos annually, according to Glass Studio manager Colleen O’Connor.
The museum’s history with glass collecting can be attributed to museum founder Edward Drummond Libbey, who is credited with being forward-thinking in his quest to collect American glass dating back to the 17th Century. The museum today has more than 4,000 glass objects and more than 2,000 archaeological fragments.
Page likened the glass movement to the glass chandelier sculpture that hangs in the front of the pavilion, a “logarithmic spiral” that broadened as each generation, from Littleton to today, gathered others in artistic communities around them, letting their innate curiosity and experimentation take over.
She said Toledo still remains an imposing figure in the studio glass movement.
“The goal [of this exhibition] certainly is to broaden or highlight the spectrum of contemporary works in glass both in terms of geography as well as depth of technique and range of artists,” she said. “And of course a larger aspect of that is the dedication of this community to glass. The quantity of works of art are so extraordinary that we had no problem picking museum quality works for this show.”
Contact Roberta Gedert at: rgedert@theblade.com or 419-724-6075 or on Twitter @RoGedert.
First Published April 10, 2016, 4:00 a.m.
