The Speed Art Museum will present “Fifty Years of Contemporary Glass: Art, Craft or Otherwise?” April 25 to August 2, an exhibition featuring highlights from the Adele and Leonard Leight collection, featuring examples of more than 50 works by internationally celebrated glass artists, including Dale Chihuly, Judith Schaechter, Richard Meitner and Stanislav Libenský, among others.
Emerging around 1960, the American studio glass movement began with artists interested in using hot glass as an artistic medium. At the same time in Europe, a more advanced tradition of avant-garde glass relied on specialized designers working with skilled artisans in glass factories and workshops. The exhibition looks at the movement’s development from both an historical and a critical perspective as it moves past its half-century mark. This exhibition explores the diversity found in contemporary glass by focusing on some of the aesthetic, intellectual and critical issues that have shaped the movement.
Examples by a diverse array of artists will be shown, including by Harvey Littleton, recognized internationally as one of the “fathers” of the studio glass movement. Also on view will be works by Kentucky resident Stephen Rolfe Powell, known for his cross-pollinating use of color and light.
The Leight collection is one of the nation’s most comprehensive collections of contemporary glass. Leonard and Adele Leight began acquiring contemporary studio glass in the late 1960s, shortly after the first American artists began using glass as an artistic medium. In 1992, they began donating portions of their collection to the Speed and have since given nearly 350 objects to the museum’s collection.
This exhibition will be presented in conjunction with the 2010 Louisville Visual Art Festival “GLASS30: Four Weeks of Fire,” beginning on June 9, and the Glass Art Society 40th Annual Conference “Ingenious Possibilities” from June 10 to 12. Admission is free.
The Speed Art Museum is at 2035 South Third Street. For information, 502-634-2700 or www.speedmuseum.org .
