BAY AREA GLASS SCULPTURE, An Invitational Survey Juried by George and Dorothy Saxe

Opening Reception: Thursday, November 13th, 5:30 to 7:30

The San Francisco Bay Area has emerged as a hotbed of serious glass sculpture in recent years, with work created using a large variety of techniques. The resulting pieces showcase the vast vocabulary available to artists working in glass. This important invitational features 23 artists from internationally celebrated masters, such as studio glass pioneer Marvin Lipofsky, to mid-career and emerging sculptors working in the Bay Area who use glass as their primary medium. George and Dorothy Saxe, who have assembled one of the country's foremost glass collections (bequeathed to the De Young Museum in San Francisco) will select from one to three works by each artist.

On view will be wall hung, suspended, free standing and pedestal sized sculptures made from various types of glass, including pâte de verre, borosilicate, sheet, recycled glass and exemplifying many different techniques including casting, blowing (free and mold), fusing, slumping, cold-working, hot-working, etc... Some works will use glass combined with different materials.

We are honored to feature Marvin Lipofsky, who is widely recognized as a pioneer in the contemporary glass movement and as the father of Bay Area glass sculpture. After introducing glass as a sculpture medium at UC Berkeley in 1964, he created the glass department for then California College of Arts and Crafts (now CCA) in Oakland, and headed it for twenty years until 1987. In his 45 year career as a glass artist, Lipofsky has been featured in numerous significant exhibitions, including a major retrospective at the Oakland Museum in 2003. He co-founded The Glass Society and has taught and lectured at over 300 workshops and conferences internationally. Collected by ninety museums on four continents, his organic, luminous works with either delicate or dramatic rhythms of colors can also be found in some of the most prestigious private and corporate collections.

David Ruth has accomplished some of the most massive glass sculptures ever made. He is best known for his thick slabs of cast glass that team with brilliant colors, “gestures like brushstrokes he collaged into translucent calligraphy”, says Geoff Witchert in Ruth's 2005 catalogue titled “Internal Life”. Ruth's public and corporate commissions and collections include Tokyo's DysneySea, the Fairbank International Airport, the Corning Museum of Glass, Musée du Verre in Sars, France and Noto Jima Glass Museum in Japan.

Winner of the 2005 Niche award for blown glass - awarded by Niche magazine for the best of blown glass in the United States - Randy Strong, artist and designer in hot glass for 40 years, has worked continuously throughout his career producing innovative designs in glass that continually influence the community of studio glass artists. His delicate compositions have been acquired by collectors internationally and are a part of collections ranging from The Corning Museum in New York, to the Louvre in Paris. While John Lewis has been known mainly for over 20 years for his architectural glass production, including the more than 600 individually cast pieces in "Ice Falls" located in the Hearst Tower in New York City, he remains a dedicated studio artist. His sculptural tables and benches have been collected widely by museums and corporate and private clients.

Steven Maslach, who maintained a Bay Area studio until recently, has relocated to Washington, yet he is still considered an important figure in the Bay Area studio glass movement. Mostly known for his blown glass works over his 35 year career, he has lately moved to casting elegant boat shapes with brilliant inclusions and striking figurative works.

Past and present faculty members of CCA included in this exhibition are: Bella Feldman, who was professor of sculpture at CCAC from 1965 to 2001 and chaired the department for 3 years, began incorporating glass with her metal sculptures in 1995; Pamina Traylor, whose solo exhibition “Reflections” closes on November 6th, 2008; Duncan House, whose compositions of blown glass commonplace objects surprise and delight; Elin Christopherson, who will be showing new works in her botanical wall hung series, and Bulgaria-born Latchezar Boyadjiev who taught there in 1990-91, studied with renown Czech glass master Stanislav Libensky from 1980-85 and moved to the US in 1986.

Also teaching glass techniques in the Bay Area are: Mary White (Head of the Glass Program at San Jose State University), Carol Lawton (Ohlone College), Michelle Knox (director of Public Glass), Jerry Kung and Alex Abajain (Public Glass).

The mid-career and emerging artists of note featured in the exhibition are: Susan Longini (who is the president of the Glass Alliance of Northern California), JP Long, Travis Sandoval, Benjamin Brown, Jaime Guerrero, Julie Alland, Kathleen Elliot and Marta Thoma.

This important exhibition will occupy three sides of the gallery!

Sculpturesite Gallery is the only San Francisco gallery dedicated to contemporary and modern sculpture. Located in SOMA's Yerba Buena neighborhood, San Francisco's bustling Museum District, one block South of SFMOMA the gallery has indoor and outdoor exhibition areas for sculpture.

For additional information or high resolution images, please contact Brigitte Micmacker, Director, at (415) 495-6400, or brigitte@sculpturesite.com

Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10 am to 6pm.