Displaying items by tag: glass art

A former employee of famed glass-blowing artist Dale Chihuly has been charged by authorities in Washington state with first degree theft and three counts of first-degree trafficking of stolen property.

Christopher Robert Kaul is accused of stealing 90 pieces worth over $3 million while working at the Chihuly warehouse in Tacoma, Wash., says the Pierce County Prosecutor's Office.

Karol Wight, president and executive director of The Corning Museum of Glass, announced today that senior curator of modern and contemporary glass, Tina Oldknow, will retire in September 2015. Since 2000, Oldknow has been responsible for all curatorial aspects of the glass collections dating from 1900 to the present.

“Tina’s impact on our organization over the past 15 years has been tremendous,” said Wight. “She has transformed the displays and collections of the Museum, curated numerous popular exhibitions, is known as a leading expert in the field, and is simply a marvelous colleague."

When Mike Sorge thinks about the new expansion at the Corning Museum of Glass, he isn't thinking about glass.

Sorge, who owns Sorge's Italian Restaurant on Market Street in Corning, is more excited about the extra customers the new wing is expected to bring to his business and others.

The museum plans to unveil the highly-anticipated 100,000-square-foot North Wing on Friday, and local business owners and tourism officials are preparing for an increase in tourism spending when visitors come to Corning. Last year, more than 400,000 visitors came to the museum.

It’s hard to take in much Dale Chihuly artwork without a big helping of artist worship. The international glass artist has an internationally strong public relations crew, not to mention on-staff photographers, videographers, personal assistants and an entire team of glassblowers making sure that the Chihuly brand — like the art — is big and visible.

“Chihuly Drawings,” newly opened at Tacoma’s Museum of Glass, is no exception. A gallery has been devoted to the artist’s process, and another is papered floor to ceiling with his fax messages.

The Corning Museum of Glass has made five acquisitions of recent works by artists Roni Horn, Klaus Moje, Ayala Serfaty, Jeroen Verhoeven and Fred Wilson, expanding its collection contemporary art and design. The museum is due to put the works on display in its new $64 million wing, which is due to open March 20.

The museum in Corning, New York, is the world’s largest collection of glass objects, spanning 3,500 years.

"It's one of my favorite places in the world to show my work," glass artist Dale Chihuly said of the Fairchild Tropical Botanical Garden in Coral Gables, Florida, at the December 6 opening of his sprawling site-specific exhibition.

Throughout the garden's 83 acres, Chihuly and his team set 24 installations of his well-known glass sculptures at various sites—among them: sweeping meadows, palm forests, and a butterfly farm.

For decades, travelers have made their way to the Corning Museum of Glass to view all the ways that light can sparkle and shimmer.

The museum in this rural Finger Lakes town, which began as what the company called a gift to the community for its 100th anniversary, opened in 1951 with a modest footprint. In the years since, the museum has earned world renown, with a collection of nearly 50,000 pieces of glass art, some dating from 1500 B.C.

On the back of its success, the museum has undergone three major expansions. But despite those enhancements, it is again on the verge of exceeding itself as a glass showcase.

There was a time when glass was a craft. But in recent years it has become something more: an established art form, and an attractive—and affordable—investment.

"Art glass is a great way to begin collecting art because there is so much available at so many price points," says Carina Villinger, head of 20th century decorative art and design at Christie's.

Since the launch of the Studio Glass movement in the 1960s, glass has slowly crossed the species barrier from craft to fine art. Today, examples of glass art include bright colors and arresting shapes, works that resemble paintings in glass, and objects both strange and familiar encased in glass.

The home of René Lalique in Wingen-sur-Mode, where the glass designer would stay when visiting his nearby factory, is currently being transformed into a luxury hotel that should start welcoming guest as Villa Lalique in the spring of 2015, Silvio Denz, CEO of Lalique and a longtime collector of the famed glass master’s perfume bottles, told Blouin Lifestyle.

Lalique, who founded his company in 1885, started his career as a jeweler, but is today probably better known for his decorative objects from perfume bottles to vases. He founded his factory in Wingen-sur Mode, which is in the Vosges in the North-east of France, in 1921 and the villa dates from the period and is typical of the architecture found in the Alsace region with half-timbering.

A line of people snaked along the walkway to the Chrysler Museum of Art on Friday evening.

"It's exciting," said Kathie Moore of Norfolk. She was among those in line for a members preview event. She hadn't been inside yet, but she already appreciated the new landscaping and outdoor sculptures.

"I've missed it terribly," she said.

The Chrysler Museum of Art reopens today to the public after being closed for just over 16 months during a $24 million expansion and renovation project.

Friday evening, more than a thousand members, out of about 3,000, flooded the museum for a reopening party.