Robert Kehlmann, "Millennium Byōbu II” (2000), Four Seasons Hotel, San Francisco.
Robert Kehlmann is an artist and writer. He was an early spokesperson for evaluating glass art in the context of contemporary painting and sculpture. His glasswork has been exhibited worldwide and is the focus of numerous commentaries. Kehlmann's work can be found in museums and private collections in the United States, Europe and Asia. He has written books, articles, and exhibition reviews for publications in the U.S. and abroad. In 2014 the Rakow Research Library of The Corning Museum of Glass acquired Kehlmann's studio and research archives.
Biography
Robert Kehlmann, “Quartet” (1979) Private Collection, San Francisco.
Part of a group of California artists making leaded glass panels in the early 1970s, Kehlmann emerged as a key figure in the development of contemporary American stained glass.[1] Formally trained in literary criticism he was self-taught as an artist. His leaded works, called “Compositions,” together with later mixed media pieces and mosaics, have been described as symbolic, subjective narratives, rendered in a “painterly tradition.”[2] As an art critic he was a theorist and spokesperson for the contemporary glass movement in the later part of the 20th century.[3]
A former Chairman of Berkeley's Landmark’s Preservation Commission (1997-1999), he founded the Berkeley Historical Plaque Project in 1997. Kehlmann has lived and worked in Berkeley California since 1963. His wife, Diana Tosto Kehlmann, is a Jin Shin Jitsu practitioner and a homeopath. Their son, Ephraim, is a digital media producer living in New York City.
Leaded Glass Drawings
Robert Kehlmann, “Composition XXVIII” (1976), Museum für Zeitgenössische Glasmalerei, Langen, Germany.
After receiving his master's degree in English Literature, Kehlmann traveled in Europe (1969–70) where he developed an interest in art. He used the tools of literary criticism to help his understanding: “From the start I felt there was little difference in the experience of reading a poem and that of looking at a painting.”[4]
Kehlmann's early “Compositions” are made with traditional lead came and colored glass. Glass forms protrude from the background surface, whimsically frolicking with and redefining underlying blocks of color and lead scribbles.[5] Explaining the absence of transparent glass in these works, he wrote: “I don’t want people looking through my windows. What lies behind the compositions, aside from a source of light, has no relevance to my design.” Kehlmann rejected the medium's seductive colors and Tiffany-like approach “plagued” by “small multi-colored pieces of glass,” insisting that the artist has “greater control” with fewer colors and fewer pieces of glass.[6]
His leaded “Compositions” are more akin to paintings or drawings than to traditional stained glass. They have been described as narratives at once “spontaneous, lyric, grotesque and humorous.”[7] Biomorphic forms, quirky lines and childlike scribbles, at times derived from his son's crayon drawings, add to the surreal atmosphere.[8] A crossed-out triangle in one of the works “appears a casual enough gesture, but the assumption of nearly a thousand years of stained glass, that the nature of line is to delineate shape, is challenged by that childlike scrawl.” [9] These Compositions “quietly demolished more than a few of the restrictive preconceptions surrounding his media.”[1]
Sandblasted works
Robert Kehlmann, “Stations of the Cross I: Christ Condemned” (1995), Saint Mary's College of California, Moraga, CA.
In the late ‘70s Kehlmann began using sandblast on sheets of hand-blown glass to make “nuanced monochromes”[10] which glow with inner-light trapped in their surfaces.[11] Perhaps in response to his brother's untimely death in 1982, the exuberance of the early leaded compositions gives way to introspection in two major series: Tablets (1981) and The Stations of the Cross (1982-1995).[5]
In the mid-1980s Kehlmann began using brass and copper etching on the surface of the glass, and charcoal drawings on board behind the glass, to express “free-associative states of mind.”[12] During a 1984 interview, the late art critic Clement Greenberg singled out Kehlmann's work as taking the “first steps” toward “major art” in “two-dimensional, pictorial” glass.[13]
Kehlmann's mid-career sandblasted works encourage the viewer to enter the depth of the works together with the light.[14] Within layered pieces of glass, or spaces between the glass and underlying drawing, lines and shadows mix with light. The inner-spaces create changing kinetic pattern and movement as the viewer moves or the light changes.[10]
After traveling in Japan and teaching at the Miasa Bunka center in Nagano City Japan in 1985, the influence of Japanese esthetics and calligraphy emerges prominently in Kehlmann's work.[15] His pieces of the 1990s and beyond have been called “quiet abstract meditations” making references to the Bible, Buddhism, the natural landscape and Japanese calligraphy.[14]
Kehlmann's “Zen graffiti or Americanized calligraphy,” a mix of bold charcoal gestures and anxious strokes, at times combines with broad areas of gold leaf in the style of the Japanese byōbu.[5] Other works of the ‘90s were inspired by the northern California coast with light from ripples and bubbles in the hand-blown glass evoking the surface of water, tide pools, and underwater shadows. They are “characterized by the sensual, measured quality of tender, vulnerable drawn lines in an uncertain planar space.”[10]
Mosaic and Collage
Robert Kehlmann, "Piano" (1994), Corning Museum of Glass.
In his mosaics, as in the sandblasted works, Kehlmann superimposes glass over an underlying drawing. Irregular spaces between individually hand-cut tesserae and larger abstract glass forms assume a graphic role. They cast shadows that lead the eye of the viewer back and forth between the glass surface and the drawing behind it.[1] The expressive mixed-media collages, containing autobiographical snippets (museum and opera ticket stubs, entries from his father's address cards, fragments of notated travel maps, etc.) are his most personal works.
Select Public Collections
Robert Kehlmann, "Palimpsest III" (1992), Private Collection, Walnut Creek, CA.
Bank of America World Headquarters, San Francisco, California
Robert Kehlmann, "Drake's Estero I" (1991), Museo del Vidria, Monterrey, Mexico.
1976 “Robert Kehlmann: Stained Glass Compositions,” Richmond Art Center, Richmond CA.
1978 “New Stained Glass,” Museum of Contemporary Crafts, New York (catalog).
1978 “Robert Kehlmann: Lead and Glass Drawings,” William Sawyer Gallery, San Francisco, CA.
1979 “New Glass,” Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, NY (catalog).
1982 “Robert Kehlmann: Works on Glass,” William Sawyer Gallery, San Francisco, CA.
1982 “World Glass Now ’82,” Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art, Sapporo, Japan (catalog)
1983 “Sculptural Glass,” Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, Arizona. “Stations of the Cross” a series of fourteen sandblasted glass panels exhibited (catalog).
1985 “Robert Kehlmann, Neue Glasmalerei,” Galerie M, Kassel and Galerie L, Hamburg, Germany.
1986 “Robert Kehlmann: New Works with Glass,” William Sawyer Gallery, San Francisco, CA.
1988, 1990 “Robert Kehlmann,” Anne O’Brien Gallery, Washington, DC.
1993 “Robert Kehlmann: Drawings with Glass,” Dorothy Weiss Gallery, San Francisco, CA.
1996 “Robert Kehlmann, Painting with Glass: A Retrospective,” Hearst Art Gallery, Saint Mary's College of California, Moraga, CA. (catalog).
Art Criticism
As author and curator, Kehlmann became the unofficial theoretician for innovative, non-traditional work in stained glass.[16] He praised American artists who were forging technical and esthetic innovation while exploring glass as an “autonomous” (as distinct from architectural) medium.[17] A friendly rivalry developed with Robert Sowers, the dean of American stained glass criticism, who argued that stained glass, from its origins, was first and foremost an architectural art.[18] With articles like “Stained Glass as a Non-Architectural Art,”[19] and “Glass as a Free Art Form,”[20] Kehlmann questioned this assumption. He focused attention on non-architectural stained glass being done by artists like himself who designed and fabricated independent panels during the 1970s and 1980s: Sanford Barnett, Casey Lewis, Paul Marioni, Peter Mollica, Richard Posner and Narcissus Quagliata.
In later writings Kehlmann follows in the footsteps of artist-critic Robert Sowers by developing a new contemporary stained glass aesthetic.[5]Twentieth Century Stained Glass: a New Definition presents an overview of the medium focusing on different 20th Century trends, how they influenced one another, and how they were influenced by other media.[21]
The Inner Light: Sculpture by Stanislav Libenský and Jaroslava Brychtová, a monograph published in conjunction with the 2002 inaugural exhibition of Tacoma's Museum of Glass, analyzes the artists’ work in the context of Czech Cubism. Kehlmann's interviews with the artists, which took place shortly before Libenský's death, movingly refer to works cast at the time the artist discovered he had terminal cancer.[22]
As editor of the Glass Art Society Journal, in 1981 Kehlmann founded[23] a well-respected critical and technical journal that continues in publication.[5]
Gallery
Robert Kehlmann, “Composition XXVIII” (1976), Museum für Zeitgenössische Glasmalerei, Langen, Germany.
Robert Kehlmann, "Composition XXIX" (1976), Corning Museum of Glass.
Robert Kehlmann, "Composition XXXI" (1976), Corning Museum of Glass.
Robert Kehlmann, "Composition XXXVIII" (1977), Museum of Arts and Design, New York.
Robert Kehlmann, “Quartet” (1979) Private Collection, San Francisco.
Robert Kehlmann, "Composition 55" (1979), Toledo Museum of Art.
Robert Kehlmann, “Stations of the Cross I: Christ Condemned” (1995), Saint Mary's College of California, Moraga, CA.
Robert Kehlmann, "Stations of the Cross XIV: Entombment" (1976), Corning Museum of Glass.
Robert Kehlmann, "Palais Royal V: Stage 1" (1982), Hokkaido Museum, Sapporo, Japan.
Robert Kehlmann, "Berkeley Venus" (1984), Musèe des Arts Decoratifs de la Ville de Lausanne, Switzerland.
Robert Kehlmann, "Siren" (1987), Private Collection, Forest Hills, NY.
Robert Kehlmann, "Drake's Estero I" (1991), Museo del Vidria, Monterrey, Mexico.
Robert Kehlmann, "Pythagoras' Lament" (1992), Kehlmann Studio Archive.
Robert Kehlmann, "Millennium Byōbu" preliminary design (1992), Kehlmann Studio Archive.
Robert Kehlmann, "Millennium Byōbu" (1994), Lincoln Square Residential Lobby, New York.
Robert Kehlmann, "Millennium Byōbu II” (2000), Four Seasons Hotel, San Francisco.
Robert Kehlmann, "Fort Wayne" (1992), Oakland Museum of California.
Robert Kehlmann, "Palimpsest III" (1992), Private Collection, Walnut Creek, CA.
Robert Kehlmann, "Piano" (1994), Corning Museum of Glass.
Robert Kehlmann, "Berlin Triptych: Checkpoint Charlie" (2003), Kehlmann Studio Archive.
Robert Kehlmann, "Family History" (2008), Kehlmann Studio Archive.
Related Research Articles
Studio glass is the modern use of glass as an artistic medium to produce sculptures or three-dimensional artworks in the fine arts. The glass objects created are intended to make a sculptural or decorative statement, and typically serve no useful function. 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.
James Jean is a Taiwanese-American visual artist working primarily in painting and drawing. He lives and works in Los Angeles, where he moved from New York in 2003.
Larry Bell is an American contemporary artist and sculptor. He is best known for his glass boxes and large-scaled illusionistic sculptures. He is a grant recipient from, among others, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation, and his artworks are found in the collections of many major cultural institutions. He lives and works in Taos, New Mexico, and maintains a studio in Venice, California.
Joe Goode is an American artist who attended the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles from 1959–1961. Born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Goode made a name for himself in Los Angeles through his cloud imagery and milk bottle paintings which were associated with the Pop Art movement. The artist is also closely associated with Light and Space, a West coast movement of the early 1960s. He currently creates and resides in Los Angeles, California.
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.
Stanislav Libenský and Jaroslava Brychtová were Czech contemporary artists. Their works are included in many major modern art collections, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Victoria & Albert Museum.
Vitreography is a fine art printmaking technique that uses a 3⁄8-inch-thick (9.5 mm) float glass matrix instead of the traditional matrices of metal, wood or stone. A print created using the technique is called a vitreograph. Unlike a monotype, in which ink is painted onto a smooth glass plate and transferred to paper to produce a unique work, the vitreograph technique involves fixing the imagery in, or on, the glass plate. This allows the production of an edition of prints.
Dennis John Ashbaugh is an American painter and artist who resides in River House in New York City, and also lives and works in Millbrook and Pawling, New York.
Sir Brian Clarke is a British painter, architectural artist, designer 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.
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.
Karen LaMonte is an American artist known for her life-size sculptures in ceramic, bronze, marble, and cast glass.
Peter Mollica is an American stained glass artist.
Ursula Huth is a German glass sculptor and stained-glass artist. Installations made of Pate de verre, sculptures and glass panels are presented worldwide.
The term "autonomous" as applied to stained glass refers to works which are designed independent of architecture. Autonomous works are not designed to glaze windows. The term "stained glass" commonly precedes "window" and is thus linked to architecture both linguistically and conceptually. The autonomous work is more like a painting than a stained glass window, and is a non-traditional use of the medium. One critic somewhat pejoratively calls non-architectural stained glass "uncommissioned panels." Another traditionalist claims: "Stained glass can never be really satisfactory when considered as a bibelot to be hung up in the window or when sold in galleries like paintings for room decoration."
Susan Stinsmuehlen-Amend is a glass and mixed media artist who lives and works in Ojai, California.
Cianne Fragione is an American-born Italian abstract artist based in Washington, D.C. She is known for her mixed-media works that incorporate found objects and textiles with heavily layered oil paint and collage. She can be found in the permanent collections of the Baltimore Museum of Art, Cecil H. Green Library at Stanford University, and Georgetown College.
Robert Sowers was an American painter, photographer, stained glass artist, and seminal figure in the re-emergence of stained glass as an architectural art in the United States. His architectural glass commissions cover some 20 years from St George's Episcopal Church, Durham, New Hampshire (1955) to Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, New York (1975) and the blue cross window for Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. In November 1953 he participated in the New Talent Exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. He designed the vast American Airlines terminal glass facade at John F. Kennedy International Airport in 1958–59. It was demolished in 2008 to allow for an reorganization and expansion of their terminal.
Marian Volráb is a Czech glass artist, painter and university teacher.
Vladimír Kopecký' is a Czech painter, graphic artist, glass artist and university professor. From 1990 to 2008 he was the head of the Glass Studio at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague.
Dana Zámečníková' is a Czech glass artist, painter, graphic artist, architect and teacher. She is one of the most important glass artists of the post-war generation that graduated in the 1960s.
References
1 2 3 Susanne K. Frantz, New Glass Review 18, The Corning Museum of Glass, 1997, pp.34-35.
↑ David Revere McFadden, World Glass Now ’91, Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art, Sapporo, Japan, p. 51.
↑ Grace Glueck, “Art People,” The New York Times, February 10, 1978.
↑ Susanne K. Frantz, “Robert Kehlmann: Painting with Glass,” in Robert Kehlmann: Painting with Glass, A Retrospective, (1996) Hearst Art Gallery, Saint Mary’s College of California, Moraga.
1 2 3 4 5 Cate Gable, “In Pursuit of Light: The Zen Graffiti of Robert Kehlmann,” American Craft, April/May 1993.
↑ Notes on Stained Glass Compositions, 26 February-28 March 1976, Richmond Art Center, Richmond, California.
↑ Johannes Schreiter, “Glasbilder von Robert Kehlmann,” Neues Glas, 3/81, pp. 103-5).
↑ Casey Lewis, “Robert Kehlmann: Richmond Art Center,” Glass Art, Vol.4, Number 1, 1976.
1 2 3 Janet Koplos, “Moraga, Calif.: Robert Kehlmann at the Hearst Art Gallery,” Art in America, Sept. 1996, p.117.
↑ William Warmus, “The Stations of the Cross” in Robert Kehlmann: Painting with Glass, A Retrospective, (1996) Hearst Art Gallery, Saint Mary’s College of California, Moraga, p.23.
↑ Matthew Kangas, “Robert Kehlmann: Aspects of Meaning,” Glass, No.64, Fall, 1966.
↑ “An Interview with Clement Greenberg, Glass Art Society Journal, 1984-5, p.31.
1 2 Marvin A. Schenck, “Curator’s Statement,” in Robert Kehlmann: Painting with Glass, A Retrospective, (1996) Hearst Art Gallery, Saint Mary’s College of California, Moraga, p.7.
↑ “Interview: Robert Kehlmann,” Stained Glass Art, Osaka, Japan (Vol. 1, No.7, Fall).
↑ Diana Loercher, “Stained Glass—not for Windows—New Art Form,” Christian Science Monitor, March 8, 1978).
↑ New Stained Glass (catalog), The Museum of Contemporary Crafts of the American Crafts Council (1978).
↑ Robert Sowers, The Lost Art, George Wittenborn, Inc, N.Y.,1954 and Stained Glass, An Architectural Art, Universe Books, Inc. N.Y., 1965.
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