"Venice and American Studio Glass" Exhibition Opens at Le Stanze del Vetro

December 1, 2020

VENICE, ITALY — The exhibition “Venice and American Studio Glass” opened at Le Stanze del Vetro on September 6, 2020, and is on view until January 10, 2021. Curated by Tina Oldknow and William Warmus, the exhibition gathers together 155 outstanding examples of contemporary art, craft, and design in glass by American artists, with a selection of iconic works by legendary Venetian maestros.

Dan Dailey, a pioneer of American studio glass, designed the exhibition layout for “Venice and American Studio Glass,” in which his work is also featured. The diversity of work in glass, both traditional and ground-breaking, demonstrates the enduring and versatile legacy of Venetian glassmaking in America.

Artists in the exhibition such as Harvey Littleton, Richard Marquis, Lino Tagliapietra, Dale Chihuly, Ginny Ruffner, Dante Marioni, and Nancy Callan, among many others, have had a profound influence on the development and evolution of American studio glass.

“It was back in 2016, when David Landau, one of the founders of Le Stanze del Vetro, was talking to Laura de Santillana, the granddaughter of Paolo Venini, that the idea struck. As he told me, 'I wanted to make sure that people realized that glassmaking in Venice was not only beautiful in itself and had its own history, but also... that it had an enormous effect on American Studio Glass.' Landau went on to invite Tina Oldknow and William Warmus, both former curators at The Corning Museum of Glass, to organize an exhibition to examine this relationship, and met with enthusiastic affirmative responses.

'It’s a story that’s been touched upon several times but has never been systematically thought out,' says Oldknow. The result was 'Venice and American Studio Glass,' which explores the many ways in which Venice in general and glassmaking on Murano in particular have influenced and inspired American glass artists from the nascent days of Studio Glass to the present day.”

— EMMA PARK, Glass Quarterly

Art historian and philanthropist David Landau is behind Le Stanze del Vetro exhibition space on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice. It is a joint initiative between The Cini Foundation and the Swiss-based, non-profit foundation Pentagram Stiftung, headed by Marie-Rose Kahane, David’s wife. The aim of Le Stanze del Vetro’s programming is to introduce 20th- and 21st-century glass to as many people as possible, and to make them aware of its history, its beauty, importance, and function.

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Tina Oldknow is an independent curator and art historian specializing in contemporary art, craft, and design in glass. William Warmus is an art writer, independent curator, and art critic.

They have both been curators of modern and contemporary glass at The Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York.

Take a virtual tour of “Venice and American Studio Glass” at Le Stanze del Vetro.

From his rural New England studio, Dailey collaborated closely with Oldknow, Warmus and many of the artists throughout the exhibition planning process. He gave studio assistant Ken Gray the assignment to design and build a 1:20 scale model of the Stanze del Vetro galleries and the 155 works to be placed within. The laser-cut, painted cardboard structure was made to fold flat for shipping, with reference photos and instructions for snap-together assembly upon arrival in Venice.

Source: https://urbanglass.org/glass/issue/winter-...

Take a Virtual Tour of "Dan Dailey: Character Sketch" at the Chrysler Museum of Art

June 30, 2020

NORFOLK, VA — In this 5 minute video posted June 24, Carolyn and Richard Barry Curator of Glass Carolyn Swan Needell guides you on a virtual tour of "Dan Dailey: Character Sketch," an exhibition of Dailey’s figurative work that opened February 21 at the Chrysler Museum of Art. Public tours have been postponed until further notice while the museum remains closed during the COVID-19 pandemic. The exhibition will remain installed until November 29.

Last month on May 1, Needell guided members of the Art Alliance for Contemporary Glass on an in-depth exploration of the exhibition in the first half of the video chat below.

Source: https://youtu.be/dlJukZsWKtY

Automobile Vase "Repair" is Chrysler Museum's "Object of the Week"

June 26, 2020

NORFOLK, VA — Carolyn and Richard Barry Curator of Glass Carolyn Swan Needell has chosen Repair by Dan Dailey to feature as the Chrysler Museum’s “Object of the Week” for June 24, 2020. Part of the museum's permanent collection, Repair is one of twenty vases from Dailey's Automobile Vase series that he produced in 1983.

“A viewer must move all the way around the vase to see the complete image and understand the story and personas the artist conveys. The graphic nature of Dailey’s work is sometimes compared to that of a comic strip, but there is no real beginning or end to the scene that unfolds around the vase. ”

— Carolyn Swan Needell

Repair, 1983 Blown, sand-blasted, acid-polished glass. 9 × 6 in. — *Repair*, 1983
Blown, sand-blasted, acid-polished glass. 9 × 6 in.

An exhibition of Dailey’s figurative work titled "Dan Dailey: Character Sketch" opened at the museum February 21. The show features 33 works that span four decades of the artist’s career.

Source: https://chrysler.org/object-of-the-week-gl...

"Dan Dailey: Character Sketch" Exhibition Opens at the Chrysler Museum of Art

February 25, 2020

NORFOLK, VA — "Dan Dailey: Character Sketch," an exhibition of Dailey’s figurative work opened Friday, February 21. The work will be on view at The Chrysler Museum of Art until November 29. The Chrysler-curated show features 33 works that span four decades of the artist’s career. Carolyn and Richard Barry Curator of Glass Carolyn Swan Needell has written a catalog to accompany the exhibition. Subjective and narrative in nature, Dailey’s work is “inspired by the human character and based upon his direct observation of the world,” reads the exhibition announcement. The artist "articulates his perceptions and thoughts about humanity through the medium of glass, pushing the material to new frontiers in order to tell stories about human nature," the announcement continues. The exhibition includes blown and hot-worked glass vases and sculpture, glass cane murals, wall reliefs made from Vitrolite (industrial colored glass), as well as his original drawings.

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Kaitlin McKeown / The Virginian-Pilot

“Dan’s work really can’t be mistaken for the work of any other artist. The message and execution of his work is simply unique. This holds true for his over 40-year career: works made in the 1980s connect strikingly well to work made last year in 2019, in both aesthetics and meaning.”

— Carolyn Swan Needell

Since 1971, Dailey has participated in over 300 group, juried, and invitational exhibitions, and has had numerous one-person museum and gallery exhibits including a major retrospective at the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution, and a recent installation at the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. When asked if his work has been represented before in the way that the Chrysler Museum is recognizing and exhibiting his works, Dailey says, “Carolyn Needell has a thesis that she has put forth as far as my work is concerned. She wanted to focus on that and is not showing the illuminated works. She made deliberate selections and has rationale for each. Her take on it is different and my work has not been exhibited in this way before.”

Dailey will return to the Chrysler Museum May 6 – 9 for a glassblowing workshop with Perry Glass Studio Manager Robin Rogers and artist Richard Royal. Carolyn Needell will give a gallery talk about the exhibition April 4.

UPDATE: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, events associated with “Dan Dailey: Character Sketch” will be postponed until further notice. The exhibition will remain installed until November 29.

Source: https://urbanglass.org/glass/detail/dan-da...

Orbit 1987. Cast glass, paint on board, steel. 9 x 16 feet — ***Orbit***
1987. Cast glass, paint on board, steel. 9 x 16 feet

Orbit, Originally in Rockefeller Center’s Rainbow Room, Finds New Home at Toledo Museum of Art

April 28, 2017

TOLEDO, OH — Formerly in Rockefeller Center’s Rainbow Room in New York, Orbit now resides in its new home outside the Little Theater at the Toledo Museum of Art. Donated by New York real estate firm Tishman Speyer, the 15 by 8-foot mural is a glowing work of glass with a changing lighting scheme that radiates shades of amber, rose, violet and blue. The muted, ethereal feeling the mural evokes contrasts with the images from ancient mythology, space exploration and science fiction that are cast into the glass.

Dan Dailey recreates the original backdrop that had deteriorated over 3 decades in the Rainbow Room

“It’s a pretty significant piece for me,” Dailey said. “When I think about my influences, many are revealed here. This is about a kind of wide-ranging view of things that are significant in the history of art and in the history of design, and the iconography of these things.

“In retrospect, as big as it is, I realize it was still a really personal object.”

Orbit, behind the Rainbow Room bandstand in Manhattan’s Rockefeller Center, 1987 — ***Orbit***, behind the Rainbow Room bandstand in Manhattan’s Rockefeller Center, 1987

Commissioned in 1986 for the Rainbow Room nightclub, Orbit’s first inspiration was the space’s revolving dance floor and iconic history. In 2014, almost 30 years later, the glass mural was removed from its location behind the bandstand when the Rainbow Room’s owners had it dismantled as part of a major overhaul of the club’s interior. It was saved and donated to its new home in Toledo, Ohio, in 2015.

“Orbit’s scale is one reason it’s quite an impressive glass sculpture,” said Halona Norton-Westbrook, the museum’s director of collections. “But it’s also special because of the level of detail that went into the work, so that it has visual impact both from a distance, as it was installed in New York, as well as close-up. We’re thrilled to acquire this substantial work in glass for TMA’s collection.”

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The installation of Orbit is the Museum’s third collaboration with Dailey; in 2007, he co-authored the children’s book “Glassigator,” and in 2008, he was invited to participate in the Guest Artist Pavilion Project at the Museum’s Glass Pavilion.