Author: glasmuseum

In 2024, we ventured across the pond for the first time to get to know the US glass scene. One of our first destinations was the Habatat Gallery near Detroit, renowned worldwide as an El Dorado for collectors and lovers of glass art. We discovered a number of fantastic artists there whose works represent an enormous range of different styles and techniques. It was with great pleasure that we were able to acquire some unusual pieces for the collection of the Glasmuseum Lette, which can now be enjoyed in this exhibition.

“Siku (Dire Wolf)” is one of them, a boldly crafted wolf’s head, hand sculpted and engraved with strong surface textures by Shelley Muzylowski Allen. The artist grew up in northern Canada, so it is not surprising that her work often deals with the myths, natural environment, and animals of her homeland: “Rendering these creatures in states of grace, repose, or movement, I hope to capture their inherent nature. My background as a painter and an understanding of anatomy form the basis from which I depart towards more impressionistic or contemplative expressions and vignettes.”

We were also captivated by David Patchen’s work. The glass artist uses traditional murrine and cane patterning techniques, which he learned in part from the masters in Murano. But he applies these methods in his very own way, displaying a passion for experimentation, meticulous craftsmanship and attention to detail. This results in colourful, highly complex sculptures whose patterns exude an endless fascination. One of these is “Aqua Glow Eclipse”, which was inspired by ancient fossilised corals and their astoundingly lifelike organic shapes.

Excellent glass art also captured our attention in galleries and exhibitions across Europe and Germany. The works selected by an expert jury in the 2024 competition for the 2nd Hadamar Glass Prize are a striking example. Among the participants we noticed a few young artists who use the medium of glass in a way that is highly professional and yet innovative and unconventional. Fortunately, we were able to acquire several award-winning works for the collection, including the first-prize winner “Hidden in the Shadows”, a flat glass painting by the young artist Marius Zwick. With incredible precision and artistic vision, the artist uses hammer and chisel on safety glass to create cracks and fissures that generate a haunting portrait. Theme, depiction and technique are congenially combined here.

Wanja Sturhan was awarded a sponsorship prize for his work “Der Baum” (The Tree), in which the young artist masterfully achieves a poetic symbiosis of two contradictory materials – glass and stone. The treetop with its delicate and dense branches rises up from a gnarled trunk whose roots are not hidden in the ground but joined to the rock. The qualities of glass and stone could not be more different, and yet Sturhan overcomes this contradiction thanks to his talent and flair for lamp glass.

All of these exciting new acquisitions will be on view in our first exhibition in 2025 – we look forward to seeing you there!

 

PHOTO CREDITS:

Photo top: David Patchen, Aqua Glow Eclipse, 2023 – Photo: David Patchen

Photos from left:

David Patchen, Aqua Glow Eclipse, 2023 – Photo: David Patchen
Christina Bothwell, Sometimes I Dream the Strangest Things, 2021 – Photo: Robert Bender
Jamie Harris, Infusion Block in Opaline, Ruby, Amber, Brown and Blue, 2023 – Photo: Jamie Harris Studio Inc
Lucy Lyon, Blue, 2017 – Photo: Addison Doty

Wanja Sturhan, Der Baum, 2024 – Photo: Andreas Neef (studioneef)
Marius Zwick, Hidden in the Shadows, 2022 – Photo: Marius Zwick
K.William LeQuier, Droplet, 2023 – Photo: Gerard Roy
Shelley Muzylowski Allen, Siku (Dire Wolf), 2020 – Photo: Rik Allen

Tim Rawlinson, In Conversation, 2018 – Photo: Alick Cotterill
Paul Schwieder, A Charm, 2023 – Photo: Paul Schwieder
Giuliano Gaigher, Mattone, 2024 – Photo: Ruggero Giuliani
Demetra Theofanous, Reveal / Conceal, 2021 – Photo: Keay Edwards

 

Julius Weiland is best known for his artworks made of glass, which can be found in many renowned collections (Victoria & Albert Museum, Museum Kunstpalast, Würth Collection, Veste Coburg Art Collections and the Glasmuseum Lette). In recent years, the artist has added painting to his practice, exhibiting these works alongside his glass art.Now the Berliner-by-choice Julius Weiland is coming to Lette to present a type of exhibition that is a first even for the Glasmuseum, because his glass art will be accompanied by his paintings, not displayed in isolation but in the context of glass objects that have in some cases been made expressly for this show. Thus the title “Painting versus Glass!” The materiality of the two media could not be more different, and yet these works are united by the theme of architecture.

In fact, architecture was the inspiration for this series of works. The focus is on post-war construction in East Berlin from the 1960s to the 1980s in a style that is referred to as Brutalism in the West and Socialist Modernism in the East. Weiland himself lives in a block of flats from this period, in a building ensemble called “Platz der Vereinten Nationen” (United Nations Square, formerly Leninplatz) that was once a prestige project and symbol of the progressive attitude of former East Germany. Today his apartment building is a listed monument. Weiland’s paintings of this building and others, such as those in the High-Deck housing estate in Neukölln, start with pencil sketches on canvas, which he modifies here and there, leaving things out and alienating the real-life model. The resulting oil paintings are perspectival renderings made up of homogeneous-looking horizontal and vertical colour fields that remain distinct from one another, neither melding nor overlapping. Although this approach transforms the built architecture into a flat, two-dimensional view, the many shifts in perspective create a virtual spatiality that is echoed in the paintings’ counterparts – the glass objects – with an actual three-dimensional spatial experience. This juxtaposition is further enhanced by the transparency of the glass.

Weiland’s artistic intention merges with social concerns, as the buildings he depicts were once highlights of visionary social housing, which often pursued a certain ideology but was ultimately unable to meet people’s needs due to design flaws and austerity measures. The artist responds to this historical circumstance by likewise reducing and minimising his paintings, in the end revealing only the basic structure of his architectural models. He then transfers this structure to the medium of glass, extracting geometric shapes, lines, polygonal elements and patterns from the picture surface and recreating them in the glass object. The result is a new combination of motifs that play across the glass volume, either loosely assembled or condensed, or sometimes blown up to larger proportions. Whenever Weiland considers a pictorial motif to be particularly important, he makes it the main theme of his glass object. The colours in the glass are based on the painted picture, with the light making the object glow. This creates a vibrant atmosphere that is lacking in both painted and real architecture.

Weiland’s art covers a broad and varied spectrum, as demonstrated on the second level of the Glasmuseum, where his early works in glass are on view, fused glass tubes that often exhibit a playful dynamic. The artist received international awards for his work with glass tubes. In the course of his development, he then changed their design, size and density. Later, he turned to mouth-blown glass, producing multicoloured, upbeat works that are sometimes figurative. All of them attest to how Julius Weiland is constantly engaged in reinterpreting glass and enriching the world of glass art.

Photo credit:

Photo above: Julius Weiland, Aubette (Cinema), Öl auf Leinwand, 2023 © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2024, Photo: Eric Tschernow

Photos from left to right:

Julius Weiland, Wandelhalle, Öl auf Leinwand, 2022 +  Modular 1, 2024 © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2024, Photo: Julius Weiland

Julius Weiland, Polygon, 2022 © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2024, Photo: Julius Weiland

Julius Weiland, Fred auf der Treppe, Öl auf Leinwand, 2020 © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2024, Photo: Julius Weiland

Julius Weiland, Formation 3, 2023 © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2024, Photo: Julius Weiland

 

Julius Weiland, Slump, 2022 © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2024, Photo: Julius Weiland

Julius Weiland, Untitled V, 2019 © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2024, Photo: Julius Weiland

Julius Weiland, High Deck 2, Öl auf Holz, 2022 © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2024,  Photo: Julius Weiland

Julius Weiland, Ephemeral Purple, 2012 © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2024, Photo: Julius Weiland

 

Julius Weiland, Blue Sky, 2018 © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2024, Photo: Julius Weiland

Julius Weiland, Down the Rabbit Hole, 2017 © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2024, Photo: Eric Tschernow

Julius Weiland, Matrix, Öl auf Holz, 2022 © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2024, Photo: Julius Weiland

Julius Weiland, o.T., 2002 © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2024, Photo: Horst Kolberg

 

 

It was exactly ten years ago that we first invited Polish artists to exhibit with us who were associated as graduates or teachers with the renowned Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Art and Design in Wrocław, a prominent school for art glass in Poland.

In spring 2023, we paid a renewed visit to the academy’s glass department. We encountered there a state-of-the-art creative workshop in a spacious new building, equipped with technical infrastructure of a high standard, providing ideal conditions for training students. Thanks to the broad array of technical equipment at their disposal, students can learn here all the various techniques for working with glass in its hot or cold state, including glassblowing, fusing, lampwork, glass painting, cutting, engraving, architectural glass and restoration.

Experienced and highly specialised teaching staff who collaborate with international experts ensure a high level of instruction. The students have the unique opportunity to engage with glass in an interdisciplinary fashion, thus gaining new perspectives that help them to find their own artistic path – a situation that is quite exceptional on the international scene.

We were extremely impressed with these training conditions and the resulting artworks, reinforcing our desire to invite representatives from the school to exhibit with us. Our guests from Poland, among them world-renowned lecturers, graduates and students from the glass department at the Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Art and Design in Wrocław, will be presenting around 50 works. They all demonstrate a perfect command of the various glassmaking techniques, but they also like to break with tradition in order to come up with something new. Their works are abstract, sculptural, narrative, ironic, or simply moving. Each piece makes its own statement, displaying a unique character, style, and form that express the artist’s own personal approach to the medium of glass.

We would like to thank especially the two artists Kalina Bańka-Kulka and Marzena Krzemińska-Baluch as well as Magdalena and Wiktor Borowski, who all acted as intermediaries between the artists and the foundation. Thanks to their support we are now able to present Poland’s vibrant glass scene for the second time at our glass museum!

Photos (from left):

Kalina Bańka-Kulka, Enjoy your meal! (2), 2020 – Photo Kalina Bańka-Kulka

Dagmara Bielecka, все для победы! (All for victory!), 2023 – Photo Grzegorz Stadnik

Monika Rubaniuk, Creeper, 2021 – Photo Titus Poplawski

Agnieszka Leśniak Banasiak, In my mind, 2019 – Photo Krzysztof Pachurka

 

Stanisław Sobota, Nadciąga mrok (Darkness is coming), 2022 – Photo Stanisław Sobota

Antonina Joszczuk-Brzozowska, Ashes to Ashes II, no.3, 2023 – Photo Justyna Żak

Magdalena Wodarczyk, Implosion, 2017 – Photo Grzegorz Stadnik

Wojciech Peszko, Frog Trap II, 2016 – Photo Krzysztof Pachurka

 

Pati Dubiel, Infantuazione, 2022 – Photo Anna Huzarska

Anna Józefowska, Arron, 2022 – Photo Michał Łagoda

Katarzyna Krej, Explosion, 2024 – Photo Agnieszka Wira

Dziyana Shydlouskaya, Adinkra (2), 2019 – Photo Dziyana Shydlouskaya

 

 

Lilly Ernsting (1930–2023) and her husband Kurt (1929–2011) were successful entrepreneurs and major benefactors and patrons of culture, education and social projects.

They also delighted in sharing their enthusiasm for contemporary art glass, opening hearts and arousing curiosity and interest in this particular genre of art. Over a period of nearly five decades, Lilly Ernsting steadily amassed a glass collection of world standing that will continue to be augmented after her passing.

Based on a desire to not keep their unique collection all to themselves but to share it with an interested public, the Ernstings founded the Glasmuseum in 1996 and the Glasdepot in Lette in 2006. Ever since then, the museum’s central mission has been to keep up with new trends in German and international art glass and to promote and exhibit the work of young glass artists. The Glasdepot furthermore offers visitors a chance to view the entire, continuously growing glass collection.

Back in the mid-1970s, as Lilly Ernsting was making plans for a hiking holiday in the Bavarian Forest, she could not have imagined how the trip would change and enrich her life. On a chance visit to a gallery with her husband, she discovered art glass for the first time. Instantly fascinated, she acquired her first glass object: a simple bowl by Willi Pistor. The spark was ignited that would trigger the creation of one of the most important private glass collections anywhere in the world.

Her curiosity aroused, Lilly Ernsting proceeded over the next few years to acquire examples of studio glass, a type of art that was still new at the time, at galleries, exhibitions and through personal contact with artists including Erwin Eisch and Theodor Sellner.

Her growing collection took a decisive turn when she met the charismatic Dutch gallerist Jaap de Harder in 1985: “An aesthete to the core, he introduced me to a whole new way of thinking as I felt and contemplated the beauty and quality of glass art: away from functional glass and toward glass objects and sculptural glass,” she later said of him. When Jaap de Harder died much too young in 1993, Lilly Ernsting took over his estate. With unabated passion, she continued to single-mindedly collect contemporary international art glass. She was assisted in her endeavours by the artist Mieke Groot until 2006 and by the managing director of the Ernsting Stiftung Alter Hof Herding, Dr. Ulrike Hoppe-Oehl, until today.

Lilly Ernsting belonged to the first generation of collectors of European studio glass, so that the history of her collection also traces the development that genre. Her motto was: Never look to the past! And thus she always directed her attention ahead to the latest trends on the glass scene, a strategy that has given her collection an independent and distinctive profile. As a collector, she had her own personal relationship with the works from the outset, often associating them with cherished memories. Each piece was for her a fresh discovery.

We are so very grateful that she allowed us to share in her journey through the exciting world of glass!

 

Photo above:

Ronald Fischer, Eine Arche auf Reisen, 2005 – Photo Horst Kolberg

Photos (from left):

Lilly Ernsting – Photo Martin Timm

Theodor G. Sellner, o.T., 1983 – Photo Ron Zijlstra  /  Mieke Groot, o.T., 2003 – Photo  Ron Zijlstra  /  Richard Meitner, Fles, 1988 – Photo Ron Zijlstra  /  Wojciech Peszko, Archa III, 2008 – Photo Stanisław Sielicki

Stanisław Borowski, The Bird III, 2006 – Photo Sasa Fuis  /  Toots Zynsky, o.T., 1984 – Photo Ron Zijlstra  /  Simsa Cho, Spider Shoe, 1996 – Photo Ron Zijlstra  /  Ritsue Mishima, Tre Gole, 2009 – Photo Horst Kolberg

Stanislava Grebeníčková, Argema, 2011 – Photo Galerie Welti  /  Franz X. Höller, Paar VII, 2005 – Photo Horst Kolberg  /  Erwin Eisch, Der Lichtblick, 1981 – Photo Ron Zijlstra  /  František Janák, Capricorn I, 2005 – Photo František Janák

Gareth Noel Williams, Booster, 2003 – Photo Ron Zijlstra  /  Lieve van Stappen, Taufkleid, 1999 – Photo Ron Zijlstra  /  Deborah Hopkins, o.T., 1995 – Photo Ron Zijlstra  /  Therman Statom, o.T., 1989 – Photo Ron Zijlstra

We regularly focus on a specific theme in order to introduce you to different glass art techniques, tracing their development and potential on the current art scene. So now, after last year’s show on cold glass techniques, we are taking a look at lamp glass in what is, incidentally, our third exhibition on this topic. There is good reason for revisiting this theme, because an expedition through today’s European lamp glass scene is an exciting one, full of new discoveries.

Lamp glass got its name from being blown freely over the open flame of a lamp rather than moulded in a furnace – although this designation can be misleading as today the flame comes from a gas burner. Up until the mid-nineteenth century, an oil lamp was actually used, equipped with an additional air supply.

Lamp glass is a very old technique, dating back to antiquity. The craft then began to flourish in the sixteenth century, radiating outwards from Venice. France, the Netherlands and Germany became additional key locations. Today, as in the past, the German centre of lamp-blown glass is the Thuringian Forest, specifically the town of Lauscha.

For a long time, lamp glass was considered the art of small objects, allowing craftspeople to perfectly shape beads, miniatures, ornaments and small vessels.

Ever since the early 1990s, however, the lamp glass scene has been spreading, and today it is sparking a revival of art glass on an unprecedented scale. The lamp glass technique has even been adopted by the youngest generation of artists. Artists’ enthusiasm for lamp glass is evident in the creative ideas they conceive for this technique and the resulting objects. With free, sculptural, and sometimes large-format pieces, they are revolutionising lamp glass, opening up new possibilities for modern art.

We have invited nine outstanding artists from different European countries to present their work. They all share a common technique, and yet the “world” in which each one works tells its very own story. This is demonstrated by their artwork.

Please join us in exploring the work of our featured artists: Falk Bauer, André and Rebekka Gutgesell, Krista Israel, James Lethbridge, Susan Liebold, JanHein van Stiphout, Christine Vanoppen and Nataliya Vladychko.

We also promise you a “déjà vu” experience with artists from our collection.

 

Photo above: Susan Liebold, Kugel 1, 2022 – Foto Ronny Koch

Photos (from left):

Nataliya Vladychko, Triticum, 2020 – Photo Steven van Kooijk

James Lethbridge, Nightingale’s Sorrow – a Covid 19 replica – Photo James Lethbridge

Falk Bauer, Reisigbündler, 2022 – Photo Falk Bauer

Christine Vanoppen, Infinity, 2019 – Photo Christine Vanoppen

 Krista Israel, Good Hair Is 90% Of The Perfect Selfie, 2021 – Photo Steven van Kooijk Photography

Siobhan Healy, Herbarium, 2011 – Photo Lighthouse Photographics

Falk Bauer, Spinnennetz mit Insekten, 2023 – Photo Falk Bauer

James Lethbridge, Acanthus Veronese in Blue – Photo James Lethbridge

 André Gutgesell, Familie 1, 2 + 3, 2018 – Photo Lutz Naumann

JanHein van Stiphout, Flora Venena (detail), 2005 – Photo JanHein van Stiphout

Rebekka + André Gutgesell, Let it Go, or the start of the journey, 2014 – Photo Rebekka Gutgesell

Susan Liebold, Freistehendes Objekt, 2023 – Photo Ronny Koch