Studio glass is the modern use of glass as an artistic medium to produce sculptures or three-dimensional artworks. The glass objects created are intended to make a sculptural or decorative statement. Though usage varies, the term is properly restricted to glass made as art in small workshops, typically with the personal involvement of the artist who designed the piece. This is in contrast to art glass, made by craftsmen in factories, and glass art, covering the whole range of glass with artistic interest made throughout history. Both art glass and studio glass originate in the 19th century, and the terms compare with studio pottery and art pottery, but in glass the term "studio glass" is mostly used for work made in the period beginning in the 1960s with a major revival in interest in artistic glassmaking.
Ginny Ruffner is a pioneering American glass artist based in Seattle, Washington. She is known for her use of the lampworking technique and for her use of borosilicate glass in her painted glass sculptures.
Judy Jensen is an American artist who resides in Austin, Texas. She is best known for her reverse painting on glass, although she incorporates other mixed media into her glass pieces. According to Nancy Bless, Jensen's works "lie somewhere between a collage and a collection."
Harvey Littleton was an American glass artist and educator, one of the founders of the studio glass movement; he is often referred to as the "Father of the Studio Glass Movement". Born in Corning, New York, he grew up in the shadow of Corning Glass Works, where his father headed Research and Development during the 1930s. Expected by his father to enter the field of physics, Littleton instead chose a career in art, gaining recognition first as a ceramist and later as a glassblower and sculptor in glass. In the latter capacity he was very influential, organizing the first glassblowing seminar aimed at the studio artist in 1962, on the grounds of the Toledo Museum of Art. Imbued with the prevailing view at the time that glassblowing could only be done on the factory floor, separated from the designer at his desk, Littleton aimed to put it within the reach of the individual studio artist.
The Corning Museum of Glass is a museum in Corning, New York, dedicated to the art, history and science of glass. It was founded in 1951 by Corning Glass Works and currently has a collection of more than 50,000 glass objects, some over 3,500 years old.
Albert Paley is an American modernist metal sculptor. Initially starting out as a jeweler, Paley has become one of the most distinguished and influential metalsmiths in the world. Within each of his works, three foundational elements stay true: the natural environment, the built environment, and the human presence. Paley is the first metal sculptor to have received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Institute of Architects. He lives and works in Rochester, New York with his wife, Frances.
Stanislav Libenský and Jaroslava Brychtová were contemporary artists. Their works are included in many major modern art collections, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Victoria & Albert Museum.
David Scott Patchen is an American glass artist who uses the techniques of cane and murrine in an American style. Patchen's work is known primarily for a combination of complexity and scale in densely patterned glass. His work is in many private and public collections internationally, featured in many publications and frequently in juried shows such as SOFA, Chicago, ART Shanghai and ART Palm Beach. His work is shown in galleries in the U.S., Canada and Europe. Patchen was awarded an artist residency in 2010 in Seto city, Japan where his visit was covered by the local media and included lectures, demonstrations and a show of his work at the Seto City Art Museum. His work has won awards and is in both private and public collections internationally. Based on Patchen's expertise, his book is part of the permanent collection of Giorgio Cini Foundation's Centro Studi del Vetro library in Venice, Italy and the Rakow Library at the Corning Museum of Glass.
Brian Clarke is a British painter, architectural artist and printmaker, known for his large-scale stained glass and mosaic projects, symbolist paintings, set designs, and collaborations with major figures in Modern and contemporary architecture.
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.
Richard Ritter is an American studio glass artist who lives in North Carolina.
Liza Lou is an American visual artist. She is best known for producing large scale sculpture using glass beads. Lou ran a studio in Durban, South Africa from 2005 to 2014. She currently has a nomadic practice, working mostly outdoors in the Mojave Desert in southern California. Lou's work is grounded in domestic craft and intersects with the larger social economy.
Glass art refers to individual works of art that are substantially or wholly made of glass. It ranges in size from monumental works and installation pieces to wall hangings and windows, to works of art made in studios and factories, including glass jewelry and tableware.
Karen LaMonte is an American artist known for her life-size sculptures in ceramic, bronze, marble, and cast glass.
Katherine Gray is a Canadian glass artist and professor of art at California State University, San Bernardino. Her work includes vases, candelabras, and goblets, and some of her pieces are designed to fit inside each other.
Joyce J. Scott is an African-American artist, sculptor, quilter, performance artist, installation artist, print-maker, lecturer and educator. Named a MacArthur Fellow in 2016, and a Smithsonian Visionary Artist in 2019, Scott is best known for her figurative sculptures and jewelry using free form, off-loom beadweaving techniques, similar to a peyote stitch. Each piece is often constructed using thousands of glass seed beads or pony beads, and sometimes other found objects or materials such as glass, quilting and leather. In 2018, she was hailed for working in new medium — a mixture of soil, clay, straw, and cement — for a sculpture meant to disintegrate and return to the earth. Scott is influenced by a variety of diverse cultures, including Native American and African traditions, Mexican, Czech, and Russian beadwork, illustration and comic books, and pop culture.
The Rockwell Museum is a Smithsonian Affiliate museum of American art located in the Finger Lakes region in downtown Corning, New York. Frommer's describes it as "one of the best-designed small museums in the Northeast." In 2015, The Rockwell Museum was named a Smithsonian Affiliate, the first in New York State outside of New York City.
Amber Cowan is an American artist and educator living and working in Philadelphia. Cowan creates fused and flameworked glass sculptures from cullet and recycled industrial glass.
Siobhan Healy is a Scottish artist and designer of glass art and goldsmithing. Her work is held in the collections of The Scottish Parliament Art Collection, Harvard Museum of Natural History/Herbarium, Glasmuseum Lette, Germany, The Heritage Collection, Clackmannanshire Council, UK and the Perth Museum and Art Gallery, UK.
Cesare Toffolo is a glass artist who lives in Murano, Italy and works from his glass studio from a 14th century palace there. He is considered to be the world's best technical flame worker.
