Sculpture, Glass, And American Museums

In recent decades, glass sculpture has entered American museum collection in unprecedented numbers. A new phenomenon, this reflects new attitudes: an understanding that art-making occurs in glass as suitable for inclusion in museum collections.

In this lavishly illustrated volume, Martha Drexler Lynn takes the reader on a tour of glass sculpture in American museums. She covers 26 permanent collections across the U.S., including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Cleveland Museum of Art, Detroit Institute of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Her survey of these museums reveals their lively interest in glass as an artistic medium, despite an earlier modernist bias.

Sculpture, Glass, and American Museums will appeal to collectors, museums, critics, and art historians. Covering the work of such artists as Christopher Wilmarth, Howard Ben Tré, Lynda Benglis, and Stanislav Libenský, Lynn paints a portrait of a medium that is rapidly becoming an indispensable component of contemporary museum collections.

This publication was commissioned by the Art Alliance for Contemporary Glass.