Beauty Beyond Nature: The Glass Art of Paul Stankard

April 2026 - Ongoing

Exhibition Overview

Paul Stankard’s evolution from scientific glassblower to small-scale sculptor is documented in more than 60 works gifted to Museum of Glass’s Permanent Collection from the Robert M. Minkoff Foundation Collection that span more than four decades. The work gathered into the exhibition Beauty Beyond Nature tells the remarkable story of a scientific glassblower who began experimenting with the paperweight form in 1969 and, within a decade, took those botanical forms encased in clear glass to new levels of technical virtuosity and expressive achievement. Working at first after hours at his home studio, Stankard overcame the technical and artistic hurdles to achieve increasingly detailed botanical accuracy and realism in his early works. But Stankard had greater ambitions that took him into new expressive terrain, and he began to push into new forms of his own invention, increasing the scale and shifting the orientation of his botanical sculptures into previously uncharted expressive territory. Along the way, Stankard left behind strict realism as he matured into an artist engaging the redemptive power of nature through an increasingly rich visual vocabulary of forms and compositions.

The exhibition Beauty Beyond Nature provides an in-depth chronological record of Stankard’s breakthrough forms and ideas. The work on view is grouped into five distinct categories: Paperweights; Botanicals; Cubes & Columns; Orbs; and Diptychs, Triptychs, & Assemblages, so that the formal issues of each can be considered on their own. Viewers can also understand Stankard’s evolution, which began with the paperweight form, but quickly developed into new vertical forms, seeking the qualities of suspension in time and the additional perspectives on his botanical forms encased within. The complexity of the botanical forms within his sculptures changes over time, with increasingly detailed veining of leaves, or delicate tendrils.

Through the works on display, a viewer can chart the evolution of a true American master as he set out on his quest to capture the wildflowers of his youth and immortalize them in glass. He succeeded, not only in depicting the natural world he loves so much, but in distilling it to its very essence, reminding us all of what it means to be alive.

Beauty Beyond Nature will open early April 2026 and be on view in the Grand Hall throughout the Museum’s capital renovation project.

Featured Images

Image Credits

1. Paul J. Stankard (American, born 1943). Homage to Daisies Cloistered Column, 2009. Blown glass with flameworked elements; 7 3/8 x 3 15/16 x 3 3/8 inches. Collection of Museum of Glass, Tacoma, Washington, gift of the Robert M. Minkoff Foundation (2021.31.299). Photo by Douglas Schaible Photography.

2. Paul J. Stankard (American, born 1943). Lily of the Valley Botanical, 1980s. Blown glass with flameworked elements; 4 3/8 x 2 1/2 x 1 7/8 inches. Collection of Museum of Glass, Tacoma, Washington, gift of the Robert M. Minkoff Foundation (2021.31.246). Photo by Douglas Schaible Photography.

3. Paul J. Stankard (American, born 1943). Lotus Paperweight, 2008. Blown glass with flameworked elements; 2 5/8 x 3 1/4 inches. Collection of Museum of Glass, Tacoma, Washington, gift of the Robert M. Minkoff Foundation (2021.31.250). Photo by Douglas Schaible Photography.

4. Paul J. Stankard (American, born 1943). Winter Squash Paperweight, 2000. Blown glass with flameworked elements; 3 1/8 x 2 1/2 inches. Collection of Museum of Glass, Tacoma, Washington, gift of the Robert M. Minkoff Foundation (2021.31.254). Photo by Douglas Schaible Photography.

5. Paul J. Stankard (American, born 1943). Flowering Blue eye Grass Botanical Paperweight. Blown glass with flameworked elements; 2 1/8 × 3 1/8 inches. Collection of Museum of Glass, Tacoma, Washington, gift of the Robert M. Minkoff Foundation (2021.31.275). Photo by Douglas Schaible Photography.

6. Paul J. Stankard (American, born 1943). Pink Mountain Laurel Environmental, 1991. Blown glass with flameworked elements; 3 x 3 13/16 inches. Collection of Museum of Glass, Tacoma, Washington, gift of the Robert M. Minkoff Foundation (2021.31.324). Photo by Douglas Schaible Photography.