Flip through these books to learn more about glass craft — a mix of laborious work and creativity.
Flameworking: Creating Glass Beads, Sculptures & Functional Objects
Author: Elizabeth Ryland Mears
Just a rod of cold glass and a torch is needed to make beads, candlesticks, and art objects. Flameworking, the art of heating, manipulating and creating new figures from glass is an impressive process, which the author has explored here. Elizabeth shares information and exercises that she has used in her workshops. The book also includes illustrations, which depict the artistic process.
Judson: Innovation in Stained Glass
Authors: David Judson and Steffie Nelson
The book gives a peek into the history of a family of artisans who started crafting stained glass windows in Los Angeles in 1897.
Generations of Judsons worked with artists, architects, and designers to make old world-style stained glass, the craftmanship and quality of which are often compared to works of Louis Tiffany. The Judsons’ work with Frank Lloyd Wright on Hollyhock House in the 1920s was recently lauded when the house was included in the UNESCO World Heritage Sites list. Much of the family’s early work was installed in religious buildings. This book illustrates their fine work in churches dating back to the early 20th century. Their modern works including the extraordinary Air Force Academy Chapel in Colorado Springs that was completed in 1962 and the world’s largest fused glass window for the Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas, are also featured.
Maurice Marinot: The Glass 1911-1934
Editors: Jean-Luc Olivié and Cristina Beltrami
The book looks at glass production by the French painter and glassmaker Maurice Marinot (1882-1960), gave glassmaking a studio art form. Marinot began his career as a painter. A visit to the glassworks of the Viard brothers displayed at Bar-sur-Seine, a commune in the Grand Est region of north-central France, triggered in him a passion for the craft, which endured for 26 years. In 1923, he stopped using enamels, and began exploring the use of bubbles, metal leaf and coloured glass.
The Glass of the Architects: Vienna 1900-1937
Editor: Rainald Franz.
Authors: Pasquale Gagliardi, Valerio Terraroli, Christoph Thun-Hohenstein and
Andreas Vass
This book with depictions of over 300 works, was published in collaboration with the MAK Vienna and Le Stanze del Vetro gallery on the occasion of an exhibition in Venice. It looks
at the history of glassmaking in Austria from 1900 to 1937.
In the early 20th century, several architects, designers, and fine arts and architecture students grew a special interest in glassmaking, which the paved way for pioneering developments in glass production. Many of these were leading figures like Josef Hoffmann, Koloman Moser, Joseph Maria Olbrich, Leopold Bauer, Otto Prutscher, Oskar Strnad, Oswald Haerdtl, and Adolf Loos. Collaborations between architects and designers lead to
innovations and productions, which further led to the creation of the Viennese glass
style.