Fritz Dreisbach | |
---|---|
Born | 1941 Cleveland, Ohio |
Nationality | U.S. citizen |
Occupation | Artist, educator |
Known for | Glass artwork |
Fritz Dreisbach is an American studio glass artist and teacher who is recognized as one of the pioneers of the American Studio Glass Movement.
Dreisbach was born in Cleveland, Ohio. He attended Hiram College in Hiram, Ohio, where he was awarded a Bachelor of Arts in 1962; Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio, where he received a Master of Arts in Teaching. in 1963 and the University of Iowa, where he received a Master of Arts in 1965. He received a Master of Fine Arts in 1967 from the University of Wisconsin, where he was an assistant to Harvey Littleton. [1] [2]
In a 35-year teaching career, the artist taught at 130 institutions worldwide, [3] including the School of the Toledo Museum of Art, Pilchuck Glass School in Stanwood, Washington and Penland School of Crafts in Penland, North Carolina. His former students include glass artists Sam Stang [4] and Mary Shaffer.
A founding member of the Seattle-based Glass Art Society (G.A.S.) in 1971, [5] The Glass Art Society presented Dreisbach with its Lifetime Achievement Award Dreisbach was awarded Honorary Life Membership in the society in 1987. In 2002 he was presented with The Glass Art Society's Lifetime Achievement Award at a ceremony in Amsterdam. [6] In 1988 he was elected to the College of Fellows of the American Craft Council.
In the United States Dreisbach's work is included in the public collections of the American Craft Museum, New York City; Cincinnati Museum of Art, Cincinnati, Ohio; Cooper-Hewitt Museum, New York City; Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York; High Museum of Art Atlanta, Georgia; Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, North Carolina and the National Collection of American Art, Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Overseas his work can be found in the Glasmuseet Ebeltoft, Ebeltoft, Denmark, Glasmuseum Frauenau, Frauenau, Germany; Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Netherlands and the Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, England. [7] [8]
The Renwick Gallery is a branch of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, located in Washington, D.C., and focuses on American craft and decorative arts from the 19th to the 21st century. It is housed in a National Historic Landmark building that was begun in 1859 on Pennsylvania Avenue and originally housed the Corcoran Gallery of Art. When it was built in 1859, it was known as "the American Louvre".
American craft is craft work produced by independent studio artists working with traditional craft materials and processes. Examples include wood, glass, clay (ceramics), textiles, and metal (metalworking). Studio craft works tend to either serve or allude to a functional or utilitarian purpose, although they are just as often handled and exhibited in ways similar to visual art objects.
Marvin Bentley Lipofsky was an American glass artist. He was one of the six students that Studio Glass founder Harvey Littleton instructed in a program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in fall 1962 and spring 1963. He was a central figure in the dissemination of the American Studio Glass Movement, introducing it to California through his tenure as an instructor at the University of California, Berkeley and the California College of Arts and Crafts.
Judith Schaechter is a Philadelphia-based artist known for her work in the medium of stained glass. Her pieces often use symbolism from stained glass and Gothic traditions, but the distorted faces and figures in her work recall a 20th century German Expressionist painting style and her subject matter is secular. Shaechter's work often involves images that might be considered disturbing such as death, disease, or violence. Early Schaechter pieces, for example, such as King of Maggots and Vide Futentes make use of memento mori, symbols of death found in church architecture during medieval times.
Richard "Dick" Marquis is an American studio glass artist. One of the first Americans ever to work in a Venetian glass factory, he became a master of Venetian cane and murrine techniques. He is considered a pioneer of American contemporary glass art, and is noted for his quirky, playful work that incorporates flawless technique and underlying seriousness about form and color.
Robert C. Fritz was an American ceramics and glass artist and professor at San Jose State University in California. As a major player in America’s mid 20th century studio glass movement, Dr. Robert Fritz is remembered for his contributions to the world of art.
Dan Owen Dailey is an American artist and educator, known for his sculpture. With the support of a team of artists and crafts people, he creates sculptures and functional objects in glass and metal. He has taught at many glass programs and is professor emeritus at the Massachusetts College of Art, where he founded the glass program.
Erwin Eisch was a German artist who worked with glass. He was also a painter, draughtsman, and printmaker. Eisch's work in glass, along with that of his friend and colleague Harvey Littleton, embodies the ideas of the international studio glass movement. Eisch is considered a founder of the studio glass movement in Europe.
John Littleton and Kate Vogel are American studio glass artists who have worked collaboratively since 1979. They are considered to be among the third generation of American Studio Glass Movement artists who trace their roots to the work of Harvey Littleton in the 1960s. John Littleton, the youngest child of Harvey Littleton, grew up in the shadow of his father's accomplishments in Madison, Wisconsin, where he experienced first-hand the personalities and events of the early glass movement. Glass, however, was not John Littleton's first medium of choice when it came time for him to select a career. It was only after majoring in photography at the University of Wisconsin–Madison that he began to create in glass. He soon formed a collaborative partnership with another art student, Kate Vogel, who had exchanged her study of two dimensional art for glass. The artists' earliest collaborations in glass were the bag forms for which they are well known today. Since 2000 their work has included a series of arms and hands cast in amber-colored glass. Over the years the hands have held various objects, including river stones, large faceted glass "jewels", and colorful cast glass leaves. In recent years Littleton and Vogel have also become known for their series of functional glass and wrought iron side tables.
Richard Ritter is an American studio glass artist who lives in North Carolina.
Therman Statom is an American Studio Glass artist whose primary medium is sheet glass. He cuts, paints, and assembles the glass - adding found glass objects along the way – to create three-dimensional sculptures. Many of these works are large in scale. Statom is known for his site-specific installations in which his glass structures dwarf the visitor. Sound and projected digital imagery are also features of the environmental works.
Michael Taylor is an American studio glass artist, teacher and lecturer. His best known body of work is his geometric glass sculptures. He works the glass cold, shaping, polishing and laminating translucent colored and clear blocks of glass together using epoxy resin.
Sam Herman was contemporary glass artist, sculptor and painter. One of Harvey Littleton's first students, Herman is credited as one of the founders of the Studio Glass movement in Great Britain. He was seminal in spreading the idea of the movement through his teaching positions in England,, and Australia and through the exhibition of his own sculpture in glass. Through the years the artist has resided and established his personal studio in London, England (1979–90), South Australia (1974–79). From 1993 to his final years he maintained studios in Spain, London and Gloucestershire. Sam was represented by The Frestonian Gallery (London).
Gary Beecham is a studio glass artist of North Carolina.
Linda MacNeil is an American abstract artist, sculptor, and jeweler. She works with glass and metal specializing in contemporary jewelry that combines metalwork with glass to create wearable sculpture. Her focus since 1975 has been sculptural objets d’art and jewelry, and she works in series. MacNeil’s jewelry is considered wearable sculpture and has been her main focus since 1996.
Shane Fero is an American artist and glass blower.
Beth Lipman is a contemporary artist working in glass. She is best known for her glass still-life compositions which reference the work of 16th- and 17th-century European painters.
Lloyd Eldred Herman is an American arts administrator, curator, writer, and museum planner who is an acknowledged expert on contemporary craft. He is known for being the founding Director of the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington D.C., from 1971 to 1986.
Dorothy Gill Barnes was an American artist known for her use of natural materials in woven and sculpted forms.
Michael Sherrill is an American ceramist and sculptor. Primarily self-taught, Sherrill’s early work in the 1970s and 1980s focused on creating functional pieces in clay before turning to sculptural artwork in porcelain and metal in the 1990s. Sherrill lives and works in Bat Cave, North Carolina.