"Two Jesters" of the Circus Vase Series is Acquired by Crystal Bridges Museum

BENTONVILLE, AK — Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art has received Two Jesters by Dan Dailey as a generous gift from Florida-based philanthropists Merle and Michael Orlove. The 1996 blown glass and fabricated bronze vase is among the first pieces to define Dailey’s iconic Circus Vase series (163 pieces, 1995 – present).

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“This is an exciting time at the museum as we just opened expanded galleries and facilities on June 6 & 7, 2026, increasing our building’s size by 50 percent. We’ve added 114,000 square feet of galleries, studios, dining options, and event spaces where everyone can enjoy and explore American art, admire the natural beauty of the Ozarks, and experience creativity and community,” said Jen Padgett, Crystal Bridges’ Windgate Curator of Craft. “We're happy to share that Two Jesters is now on view in our permanent collection galleries, available for all our visitors to enjoy.” 

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The opening of Crystal Bridges Expansion welcomed nearly 10,000 people to mark the occasion with a weekend celebration featuring live music, dance performances, artmaking and artist demonstrations, wellness activities, curator and family tours, pop-up performances by Jazz at Lincoln Center, and story time in the galleries.

The museum’s new temporary exhibition space opened with Keith Haring in 3D, featuring rarely seen works and offering the first exhibition of its kind dedicated to Haring’s three-dimensional practice. Alongside it, the new Contemporary American Art Gallery opened, featuring Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirrored Room and Teresita Fernandez’s Manigua(Mirror). In addition, all new and existing gallery spaces feature Indigenous art and craft objects, reinforcing the museum’s ongoing commitment to championing historically underrepresented artists and expanding the narrative of American art.

The mission of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art is to welcome all to celebrate the American spirit in a setting that unites the power of art with the beauty of nature. Since opening in 2011, the museum has welcomed more than 15 million visitors across its spaces, with no cost for admission. Crystal Bridges was founded in 2005 as a public 501(c)(3) nonprofit charitable organization by philanthropist Alice Walton. The collection spans five centuries of American masterworks from early American to current day and is enhanced by temporary exhibitions.

The museum is located at 600 Museum Way, Bentonville, Arkansas, on 134 acres of Ozark landscape and was designed by the world-renowned Safdie Architects. A rare Frank Lloyd Wright-designed house was preserved and relocated to the museum grounds in 2015.

"Madeleine" of the Individuals Series is Acquired by the The Baker Museum

NAPLES, FL — The Baker Museum at Artis-Naples has announced a major gift of 74 works of contemporary glass and ceramics from longtime Naples residents and passionate collectors Dr. Laurence and Rita Sibrack. Among these works is Madeleine (2011) from Dan Dailey's Individuals series. The collection, which the museum calls “transformational,” also includes works by many of Dailey’s contemporaries and other key figures in the studio glass movement, including Dale Chihuly, Amber Cowan, Preston Singletary, Judith Schaechter and Lucio Bubacco.

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“An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin.” —Marcel Proust

"I'm glad my sculpture, Madeleine, has found a new home at The Baker Museum," said Dailey. "The Madeleine is a French cookie made in a baker's mold, often in the form of a scallop shell. In the Alsace it's usually flavored with bergamot, and it's a characteristically Alsatian product. At a certain time of the year there's a 'competition' among bakers (patissiers) in the Alsace to make the best Madeleine. They make them in a variety of shapes with different designs and patterns."

"Having worked for many years at Daum Crystal in Nancy and Paris, I gained a fondness for the flavor and a respect for the patissiers' passion expressed by this friendly competition. A tasty treat for everyone."

The Baker Museum will celebrate the collection in the upcoming exhibition, The Passion of Collecting: Stories in Glass and Ceramics from the Sibrack Collection, opening January 10, 2026 and remaining on view through the fall.

“The Sibracks have long been valued supporters of Artis-Naples, and their contributions have enriched our organization in countless ways,” said Artis-Naples CEO and President Kathleen van Bergen. “Their decision to make Naples their home, inspired in part by the cultural vibrancy of Artis-Naples, is a testament to the lasting impact of our multidisciplinary mission. This remarkable gift deepens that legacy and reflects their unwavering commitment to contemporary art.”

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Madeleine, 2011, Individuals series

The Baker Museum is the foremost fine art museum in Southwest Florida, presenting an ambitious slate of exhibitions annually to complement installations of works from its permanent collection. Comprising more than 3,000 objects, the museum’s broad holdings of 20th- and 21st-century art reflect particular strengths in modern art of the United States and Mexico. Beginning with several major exhibitions and acquisitions of works by Dale Chihuly in the early 2000s, The Baker Museum has long championed the studio glass movement.

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The Baker Museum at Artis–Naples, 5833 Pelican Bay Boulevard, Naples, Florida 34108-2740

Home to The Baker Museum and the Naples Philharmonic, Artis-Naples is unique among cultural institutions nationwide by its equal dedication to both the visual and performing arts. Artis-Naples welcomes hundreds of thousands of visitors each year for a broad array of artistic and educational opportunities perfect for audiences of all backgrounds and interests.

The Passion of Collecting: Stories in Glass and Ceramics from the Sibrack Collection, featuring Dan Dailey’s Madeleine, opens January 10, 2026.

Currier Museum Retrospective Now On View

MANCHESTER, NH — Dan Dailey: Impressions of the Human Spirit is Dailey’s first comprehensive museum retrospective in New England, offering an extensive exploration of the renowned artist’s extraordinary work spanning more than five decades. The Currier Museum of Art exhibition opened on September 26, featuring 81 carefully selected objects from 1972 to 2023, ranging from vases to glass murals, blown glass sculpture, figurative lamps and chandeliers. The exhibition is open to the public and runs until February 2, 2025.

“Dailey’s meticulously crafted forms reveal Dailey as an acute observer of life,” says museum Director Jordana Pomeroy. “Each of his works brings a narrative to life, communicating the complexity of human emotion in glass. The Currier is privileged to work with Dailey on this important retrospective of his remarkable body of work.”

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“Impressions of the Human Spirit is a retrospective examination of a transformative sculptor whose creative ideas and inventiveness expanded the vocabulary of art,” writes Senior Curator Kurt Sundstrom.

In the 1960s, Dailey was entrenched in the experimental San Francisco art scene, and was among the many discontented artists who rebelled against Abstract Expressionism. Desiring to tell stories and explore the human condition, Dailey turned to the figure and everyday life as a source of artistic inspiration. His chosen medium of glass, which was unfamiliar in the exclusive art world, was initiated by the resurgence of traditional crafts and the material-based teachings of the Bauhaus.

Dailey has maintained that experimental attitude and has stayed faithful to – while greatly expanding on – the traditions of craftsmanship, making his work groundbreaking and difficult to place within established art historical categories.

A beautiful catalog of this exhibition, published by the Currier Museum of Art and designed by Joe Rapone, with essays by Kurt Sundstrom PHD and Henry Adams PHD, is available at the Currier Museum Shop.

This exhibition is generously supported by Pamela A. Harvey. Additional support is provided by the Galena-Yorktown Foundation, the Art Alliance for Contemporary Glass, Patricia L. Wentworth, and Mark Fagan

UPDATE 12/4/24: ARTalk with Dan Dailey — In the video above, join artist Dan Dailey and exhibition curator Kurt Sundstrom for a lively conversation highlighting signature works selected for his retrospective, and Dailey’s storied career as a groundbreaking artist in glass.

The Currier Museum of Art connects art with diverse audiences, from its neighborhood to international and digital visitors, and embraces regional new museum-goers and under-served communities. The museum is dedicated to the social needs of its community though programs serving people with memory loss, families of those with substance-use disorder, those with physical and cognitive challenges, and military veterans.

Moody Currier and his wife Hannah Slade conceived the idea of founding an art museum in in the 1890s. A former governor of the New Hampshire, Moody died in 1898, and Hannah in 1915. Their estate and house formed the basis of the Currier Gallery of Art, which was chartered by the state legislature in 1919. The museum building opened in October 1929, a few days before the great stock market crash ushered in the Great Depression.

Smithsonian 2024 Visionary Award Presented to Dan Dailey

WASHINGTON DC — World renowned glass artist Dan Dailey has been honored as one of the two recipients of the 2024 Smithsonian Visionary Award for his innovative and captivating glass sculptures. Dailey has a unique ability to fascinate with narratives of human experience and expression, inviting viewers into a world of imagination.

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Meroe Park, Deputy Secretary of the Smithsonian, presenting Dailey with the the 2024 Visionary Award.

Dailey employs “imagery, high contrast, simplicity of form” and symbolic rather than representational elements in his artwork. He pushes the boundaries of traditional glass composition by incorporating metal into many of his sculptures. In the 2020 Dailey retrospective at the Chrysler Museum of Art, it was stated that he is “known as one of the most unique voices within the field of contemporary glass.”

Stained glass artist Judith Schaechter was also honored as a 2024 Smithsonian Visionary, because of her unique creative vision and exceptional artistry. The Smithsonian Visionary Award is presented annually by the Secretary of the Smithsonian at the Smithsonian Craft Show to American artists who are deemed by experts in the field to have risen to the pinnacle of sculptural arts and design, who have works in major museums, and who have demonstrated distinction, creativity, exceptional artistry and, of course, vision in their respective medium.

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Dan Dailey at the Smithsonian Craft Show, May 1, 2024. The National Building Museum's Corinthian columns are among the largest in the world.

The Smithsonian American Art Museum is part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds one of the world's largest and most inclusive collections of art, from the colonial period to the present, made in the United States.

In Memory of Dr. Paul Parkman, Inventor of Rubella Vaccine

A true American patriot who saved millions of lives all over the world, Dr. Paul Parkman was remarkably modest. Whenever I heard him speak about the discovery that led him and Dr. Harry Meyer to figure out a way to stop the Rubella virus from its deadly course, he was quite matter-of-fact and humble about it.

One thing that cannot be overlooked is Paul’s selfless generosity. He and Harry had the rights to the vaccine they developed, but they didn’t keep it for themselves. They could have taken their patent to a drug manufacturer and made a lot of money, probably billions by now, but instead they assigned their patents to the National Institutes of Health, for the good of mankind. This generosity stands in stark contrast with today’s dollar-oriented individuals who think more about becoming rich than achieving something significant toward the common good.

President Lyndon B. Johnson’s words captured the importance of Paul and Harry’s discovery, and their contribution to the welfare of our country. The good that came from their work continues to help people around the world. We should have many more people like Dr. Parkman, outside of political actors and the people who try to control availability of immunization and the drug industry business opportunity seekers, men like Paul need to be recognized for their selfless goals and achievements.

Paul will be fondly remembered by all who were lucky enough to know him. Our thoughts go to Elmerina, Paul’s companion and mate since their childhood years. Together they brought a solid presence to the support group of the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Art Museum, with their curiosity and sincere interest in art made of glass. Their contribution to the arts, through building a collection and befriending many artists, and donating artworks to museums, has been done with much thought and care. Through their generous attitude and actions Paul and Elmerina have made a positive difference to the lives of others.

—Dan Dailey

Donations in Dr. Parkman's memory may be made to: Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum, MRC 510 Box 37012, Washington, DC 20013-7012, Attn: Paul Parkman Donations

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Parkman Coupe, 1988. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Elmerina and Paul Parkman

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