MIAMI, FL — The Lowe Art Museum hosted artist Dan Dailey for their Myrna and Sheldon Palley Glass Artist Lecture Series on Thursday, October 8th in the museum galleries. Dailey presented a 1-hour slide lecture titled “Pioneering the Narrative: Fifty Years of Glass Artistry” to an audience of 73 museum patrons, art students and collectors. The artist talk was followed by a lively Q&A discussion and a catered reception.
Zeus (1989), Nude Skulking in Weeds (1995) and Bramble Man (1994) on display at Lowe Museum of Art
Dailey presented more than 200 images covering a broad retrospective of his art over his fifty year career, as well as an overview of several artist colleagues who have inspired him: William Daley, Wendell Castle, Patti Warashina, Albert Paley, Gary Knox Bennett and Dale Chihuly. Dailey proposed these artists and others, himself included, have initiated a movement in art he calls “Materialism” that is not yet recognized by the academic community.
As cultural changes were driving various art movements of the 1960s in America, the incorporation of multiple traditions in materials and processes of the crafts became Dailey’s chosen palette. While paint on canvas, marble, and bronze have important and time honored traditions, Dailey and his contemporaries explored the use of clay and glass, wood, metal and fiber to realize their artistic visions. Their individual achievements transcend historic precedents and have expanded the concept of an artist's palette of materials and processes.
Later in the talk, Dailey showed works from his many different series and discussed a variety of themes as an observer of human behavior. He finds that people's quirks and oddities inspire drawings and eventually the objects he has produced. He also discussed the industrial aspects of his process, utilizing the help of factories and artisans to achieve his vision. The slide lecture was well received by museum guests and led to insightful conversation afterwards. Watch a video recording below:
Since 2018, the Lowe Art Museum has brought leading artists in contemporary glass to the University of Miami campus through the biannual Myrna and Sheldon Palley Glass Artist Lecture Series. Sheldon Palley and his late wife Myrna were not only pioneers in the realm of contemporary glass collecting, but also steadfast supporters of the University of Miami and the Lowe Art Museum. It is thanks to their visionary generosity that, for over a decade, audiences have been able to enjoy the distinctive Palley Pavilion for Contemporary Ceramics and Studio Glass.
The Lowe Art Museum began as a small gallery with a collection of just 30 modern American paintings, housed in three connecting classrooms on the second floor of the Merrick Classroom Building at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida. With the support of philanthropists Joe and Emily Lowe, the Lowe Art Gallery (later changed to Lowe Art Museum) opened on February 4, 1952, marking South Florida's first free-standing public art museum. Now an integral part of the University of Miami, the Lowe Art Museum offers its diverse audiences opportunities and resources for engaging with contemporary culture through 5,000 years of human creativity.