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September
1, 2004
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For more information, please contact:
Dr.
Graziella Marchicelli, Fine Arts Curator
(814)
472-3920
Travis
Mearns, Public Relations Coordinator
(724) 238-6015
SAMA CURATES MAJOR GLASS
EXHIBITION;
THREE PREEMINENT ARTISTS FEATURED
Loretto – Over the last 40 years, glass art has
re-emerged in America with a renewed energy, vigor and
freshness. The Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art is
celebrating this fascinating movement and medium with a
monumental exhibition of three American glass art masters.
From the highly-detailed and intricate creations of William
Morris, to the towering, expressive works of Howard Ben Tré
and Henry Hillman Jr., the SAMA exhibition offers an
up-close look at the vast artistic possibilities that exist
in modern glass art. A Glass Triumvirate: The Art of
William Morris, Henry L. Hillman Jr. and Howard Ben Tré
opens September 17 at the Loretto Museum and will remain on
view until November 21. In total, the exhibition features 30
complex works of art.
Morris, Ben Tré and Hillman
are each considered noted contributors to the glass
revolution set in motion by the much celebrated artist, Dale
Chihuly, the renowned Pilchuck Glass School and the American
glass studio movement. In addition to the exhibition, SAMA
will honor these master artists with a preview reception in
the Museum Gallery at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, September 18.
Cocktails and heavy hors d’oeuvres will be served, and Dr.
Graziella Marchicelli, SAMA Fine Arts Curator, will give an
exhibition tour. Cost for the reception is $25 or $20 for
Museum members. Please call the Museum at (814) 472-3920 for
information or reservations.
A brief history of glass
art
Despite the feverish attention
and intrigue among glass art, the genre itself is not a
necessarily new one. Louis Comfort Tiffany, Frank Lloyd
Wright and the company, Steuben Glass, were among the most
notable early champions for glass art in the nation’s
history. The buzz created by those pioneers would eventually
lead to the American studio glass movement, an event in
American art that would change the glass art medium and push
its possibilities and limitations.
In 1962, Harvey Littleton, a
ceramics professor, and Dominick Labino, a chemist and
engineer, held workshops at the Toledo Museum of Art, where
they unveiled a new structure of glass, characterized by a
low melting point that would enable artists to use ceramic
kilns as de facto glass furnaces. Prior to this, glassmaking
required expensive equipment and technical skill, neither of
which were available to the common artist or sculptor. The
Littleton and Labino creation was a groundbreaking one for
glass art, as artists now could work with the medium in
their own studios. The innovation sparked such a surge in
American glass art that it resulted in an official movement.
Within two years, university courses were being offered in
the art, and, by the ‘70s, approximately 100 university
glass art programs had been instituted.
During the late ‘60s, Dale Chihuly, a former
student of Littleton’s, went to study ceramics at the Rhode
Island School of Design, where he also established a
prominent glass program. In 1971, he co-founded the Pilchuck
Glass School in Stanwood, Wash., which has developed into a
gathering place for national and international glass
artists. “Chihuly’s talent and vision helped generate the
perception that glass can be more than a craft;
specifically, Chihuly created glass as sculpture, or as fine
art,” said Dr. Graziella Marchicelli, exhibition curator.
William Morris
William Morris is considered
among the elite glass artists in the world. His technical
mastery of such a fragile, difficult medium invokes
immediate respect. His use of color and design on his
sculptures, not to mention the subject matter itself, also
are reasons for the artist’s international renown. Egyptian
funerary jars, animal bones, horns and tusks created in
glass and images drawn from early European cave paintings
comprise the majority of Morris’ output these days. His work
is strongly influenced by an interest in archeology and
ancient pagan cultures and addresses the timeless
relationship between humans and their environment.
Morris was born in Carmel,
Calif., in 1957. His introduction to, and immediate passion
for, glassblowing came at age 20, when he drove a truck for
the Pilchuck Glass School. His talent and technical
excellence impressed Pilchuck co-founder Chihuly so much
that the artist appointed Morris to serve as his gaffer
(master glassblower) at his Seattle studio in the early
‘80s. Upon leaving Chihuly’s tutelage for the prospects of
his own career, Morris remained in the Pacific Northwest,
where he works in his studio today.
Since serving under Chihuly’s
direction, Morris has become a highly-decorated artist in
his own right. He recently claimed the 2004 Juror’s Award at
the 32nd Annual International Glass Invitational
at Habitat Galleries in Royal Oak, Mich. In 2002, he
received the Artist as Hero Award from the National Liberty
Museum in Philadelphia and was awarded the 2001 Visionaries
Award by the American Craft Museum in New York. His work can
be found in the permanent collections of museums throughout
the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the
National Museum of American Art, the Corning Museum of
Glass, the Chrysler Museum of Art, the Louvre, the Victoria
and Albert Museum and the Musee des Arts Decoratifs in
Paris.
Morris’ art lies in creating
the optical equivalence of bone, wood, stone and leather. He
pushes the limits of glassblowing with his mesmerizing
sculptures of spirited forms, using extraordinary skills
that seem beyond the physical and chemical properties of
glass. A unique aspect of his work is his treatment of
surface texture, achieved by various techniques such as
sprinkling powdered glass and minerals onto a blown surface,
etching, and acid washing to achieve “ancient” and textural
diversity.
“He pinches, tugs and prods
hot glass by hand with only the basic tools: pincers,
paddles and fireproof gloves – no molds,” said Marchicelli.
“His glass sculptures exude an elemental vitality; they
prompt a visceral curiosity, a gut level desire to explore
not just the myriad tactile surfaces, but also the
intangible archeological aura that consistently permeates
each work.”
Henry L. Hillman Jr.
Henry L. Hillman Jr., a native of Pittsburgh,
creates his columnar sculptures from cast glass, steel and
granite. A critical element that plays an integral role in
Hillman’s monolithic works is light. The play of light onto
the various textured and polished glass surfaces, along with
the stainless steel detailing, reinforce the artist’s
interest in motion, mystery and color. The artist also has
adopted a minimalist approach to his work that has forged
success without sacrificing the complexity of the material
and process. Through this, it is Hillman’s goal to achieve a
balance between architecture, craftsmanship and fine art.
“Minimalism’s chief attribute
is the reduction of various elements, such as color, shapes,
lines and texture, to a minimal number,” said Marchicelli.
That reduction allows for a “playful tension” to permeate
many of the artist’s sculptures, she said. “The works
demonstrate simultaneously stillness and rhythm, rest and
movement, solidity and fluidity, opacity and jewel-like
transparency. His elegantly long, straight vertical lines
and dynamic chaotic edges, like turbulent water, work to
emphasize each other.”
Hillman began his career in
glass art when he was professionally involved with the
Bullseye Glassmaking Company in the mid-‘80s. He studied at
Portland State University and Pacific Northwest College, and
opened his own studio in Portland, Ore., in 1993. Over the
years, Hillman has collaborated with several prominent
Northwest glass artists and perfected the techniques he has
come to utilize. He has had solo exhibitions throughout
Oregon, including a recent showing at Freed Gallery in
Lincoln City, Ore., and three showings at the Elizabeth
Leach Gallery in Portland.
Hillman is unique among
modern-day glass artists in that he creates from the “sand
up,” whereby all castings undergo precise color mixing and
are hand-fired in custom-made kilns. Through this process,
Hillman achieves a transparent tonality in glass that he
refers to as “cathedral” colors. Strong, yet clear, reds,
greens, yellows, blues or magentas appear evenly throughout
each 4” to 6” block. In further crafting, the glass blocks
are cut, carved, honed and polished, giving shape to his
visions. Whether it be his monumental column sculptures or
smaller geometric works, which he calls “tabletop
pedestals,” Hillman’s art always seems to be characterized
by its vibrant, intense colors, transparency and luminosity.
“I experiment with the forms
and shapes to find a balance that seems natural to each
sculpture,” said Hillman. “This causes the sculpture to
change appearance, as either the light or the observer moves
around it, giving the work movement that seems to come from
within.”
Howard Ben Tré
Howard Ben Tré is known
throughout the world for his unique sculptures and large
scale works of art. Ben Tré is truly a pioneer in the use of
cast glass as a sculptural medium, with works included in
more than 85 museums and public collections worldwide. Some
of his works are even used by thousands of people every day.
His technical innovations have extended his mastery of cast
glass and allowed the artist to create monumental sculptures
that can survive the rigors of outdoor installation. Among
his many notable public commissions is an award-winning
installation of fountains and seating created for Post
Office Square Park in Boston and a plaza and seating for the
federal courthouse in Las Vegas. Plazas, with sculptures,
fountains and landscaping, also have been designed and
constructed for Bank of America’s Hearst Towers in
Charlotte, N.C., Brown University in Providence, R.I., and
Target Corporation Headquarters in Minneapolis. Museums,
including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Philadelphia
Museum of Art, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden,
the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution, the
National Museum of Modern Art in Kyoto, Japan, and the
Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nice, France, count
Ben Tré’s work among their permanent collections.
Known for their powerful and
evocative nature, Ben Tré’s cast glass sculptures have the
ability to connect the modern industrial world to the
ancient past, prompting viewers to contemplate the interlay
between the artist’s modern technological methods and his
deftly executed allusions to ancient forms and structures.
“His sculptures, such as Basins, Columns,
Bearing Figures, and Wrapped Forms, are grounded
in the modern vocabulary of minimalism with symbolist
influences,” said Marchicelli. “Yet, they bring to mind the
architecture and artifacts of antiquity, the remnants of
distant, far-flung worlds, Greek temple columns and Bronze
Age Chinese ritual vessels.”
Ben Tré, born in Brooklyn,
N.Y. in 1949, began his career in the mid-‘70s, during a
period of intense introspection. He moved to Oregon earlier
in the decade, where he worked construction while taking
classes at Portland State University. In 1977, he enrolled
in Pilchuck Glass School, where he worked with Italo Scanga,
an internationally-renowned artist famous for his sculptures
that combined found objects and glass. Within a year, Ben
Tré entered the master’s program at the Rhode Island School
of Design, where he studied sculpture and glass with Dale
Chihuly.
“The idea of making art was new to me, and
although I enjoyed the physicality of making sculpture, I
also wanted the intellectual and emotional engagement of
having the objects be explorative and not just
process-bound,” said the artist. “I was questioning how my
growth as an individual, as well as my relationship to
society, were impacting what I wanted to make.”
Ben Tré approaches the glass
medium with a sculptor’s sensibility, employing a
sand-casting method more typically used in creating bronze
sculptures. He rents a glass factory and casts sculptures
that require both industrial equipment and the assistance of
factory workers. Time also is required; Ben Tré’s glass
sculptures can sit for several months before the casts are
removed. An arduous road, from sketches and mechanical
drawings to sand molds, polishing, and the application of
finishes, Ben Tré’s dedication is found in works that are
monumental and luminous.
“His cast glass sculptures are original,
groundbreaking, masculine and thoroughly modern,” said
Marchicelli. “At the core of his work is an industrial
aesthetic that emphasizes the tactile, luminous qualities of
the materials themselves.”
Dr. Marchicelli will discuss the exhibition and
the careers of Morris, Hillman and Ben Tré at a lecture in
the Museum gallery on Wednesday, October 20. The program
will begin with a brief tour of the exhibition, and Dr.
Marchicelli will be available to answer questions following
the program. The lecture is open to the public free of
charge, and begins at 2 p.m. Please call the Museum for more
information.
The Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art at
Loretto is located on the campus of Saint Francis
University. Hours of operation are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday
through Friday and 1 to 5 p.m. weekends. The Museum is open
to the public free of charge. For more information, please
call (814) 472-3920 or visit
www.sama-art.org.
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