Contrasts: A Glass Primer

November 11, 2006 – October 11, 2009
Organized by the Museum of Glass

Contrasts: A Glass Primer is designed as a compelling introduction to the medium of glass for visitors who may be entering a museum for the first time. The exhibition is comprised of international, historically important, and visually stunning works of glass art that are grouped to illustrate opposing ideas, techniques, and styles.

Over fifty objects are placed in about twenty groupings. Some of the groupings concentrate on the appearance and forming of glass objects including Natural/Fabricated, Hot/Warm/Cold, Transparent/Translucent/Opaque and Factory/Studio. Other groupings use glass objects to illustrate general aesthetic, historic, or iconographic categories like Form/Surface, Vessel/Sculpture, Useful/Fanciful and Art/Craft.

Included are important works in the history of glass. Examples include a first century blown Roman cinerary urn that illustrates hot-formed glass; a ca. 1900 Tiffany church window epitomizes sacred art; a mid-twentieth century Harvey Littleton vase from the earliest days of the American Studio Glass movement contrasts with factory-made glass of the same period.

Among the internationally renown artists in the exhibition are Rene Lalique, Louis Comfort Tiffany, Frank Lloyd Wright, Stanislav Libenský, Jaroslava Brychtová, Harvey Littleton, and Dale Chihuly. The contemporary artists in the exhibition include an outstanding selection from the Pacific Northwest’s glass community: Dale Chihuly, Richard Marquis, Ginny Ruffner, Dante Marioni, Sonja Blomdahl, Flora Mace, Joey Kirkpatrick, Susan Plum, and Robbie Miller.

Contrasts: A Glass Primer is guest curated by Vicki Halper and is accompanied by a publication.