The Studio Glass Movement, 1962-2012

The year 2012 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the studio glass movement, and commemorations are taking place at museums throughout the country. The event that is considered to mark the founding of the movement is a 1962 series of workshops held at the Toledo Museum of Art led by glass artist Harvey Littleton. Until that time, glass was primarily considered a material for industrial uses, such as plate-glass windows, and for utilitarian drinking and serving vessels. Inspired by studio ceramists, who had expanded the scope of their work to include sculpture as well as useful objects, glassmakers no longer felt bound by functional imperatives and embraced the potential of glass for artistic expression. Thus began a fertile period of experimentation that continues today, where glass artists have often worked on a massive scale and employed a variety of techniques to highlight the brilliance, transparency, and visceral power of glass. The presentation at LACMA features work by Dale Chihuly, Stanislav Libensky and Jaroslava Brychtova, Harvey Littleton, Ivan Mares, Richard Marquis, Mary Ann “Toots” Zynsky, and many more.

This installation is made possible by a generous gift from Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser.