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KUNSTPALAST DÜSSELDORF: Glass Art

Updated: Sep 5, 2022

The Kunstpalast has an entire wing dedicated to glass art, and has one of the finest glass collections in the world. The Glasmuseum Hentrich was named for Düsseldorf architect Helmut Hentrich, whose collection of thousands of mostly Art Nouveau pieces established the Glasmuseum's reputation. Additional significant gifts have come from Gerda Koepff of Heidelberg and Frauke Thole of Hamburg.


Burgun, Schverer & Co: Garden with motif of "Echoes of Hellas," from a template by English artist and children's book illustrator Walter Crane, 1896


Henry van de Velde: window from the Villa Possehl, Travemünde, 1900-1904


Working in a variety of media, the Belgian van de Velde was a leader of the Jugendstil Art Nouveau movement. An architect and interior designer, in 1905 he was commissioned to design the interiors of the villa of German senator Emil Possehl. The windows were rescued when the villa was remodelled in 1965.


Emile Gallé: Plate with Octopus Decoration, around 1902-1904


His family were glass merchants and owned a glassworks factory, which he was educated to inherit, but after fighting in the Franco-Prussian War he became interested in art. He did end up very successfully running and expanding the family business, but he also focused more on creating art, and used his prominence to promote glass artists.


His style was considered Art Nouveau, and the techniques he developed involved fusing layers of glass and lamination. He also developed the use of colored glass, and enjoyed creating the forms of sea life, insects, and plants.


Maurice Marinot, from the 1920s.


Initially a member the French Les Fauves painter movement, Marinot then became a prominent glass artist.


Alexander Pfohl, Jr., from the 1920s and 1930s.


From a prominent glassmaking family in Bohemia, Pfohl, Jr. used enamels and paint, and was a well known Art Deco artist.


Stanislav Libensky and Jaroslava Brychtova: Diagonal, 1989


Czech artists Libensky and Brychtova both began working in glass in the 1940s, met in 1954, married in 1963, and worked together until Libensky's death in 2002.


Disney style dwarves from 1950s Czechoslovakia.


Egidio Constantini: Flowered Balcony, 1968


From Brindisi, Italy, Constantini was interested in making glass art, but began working on the business end for Murano in Venice, and from master glass workers learned the trade. Interested in elevating glass as a respected art form, in 1950 he helped found Centro Studio Pittori nell’Arte del Vetro di Murano. In 1954, he went to Paris to promote the project, and built relationships with established artists from other media. A year later, the Centro Studio disbanded and he founded his own gallery, which had its ups and downs over several years until he received the patronage of Peggy Guggenheim. Over the next decades, he was part of numerous shows, and became known as the master of Italian glass art.


Jirí Suhájek: Sculpture, 1973


Suhájek studied glasswork in his native Czech Republic, including under Libensky, and then studied in London, Italy, and Amsterdam, before settling in Prague. He works in both blown and hot formed glass, and in recent years has sculpted and worked with wire.


Ann Wärff: Shall This Be My Life, 1981


Born in Lübeck, Germany, Wärff worked in Sweden with her husband Göran, then taught at the legendary Dale Chihuly's Pilchuck Glass School, outside Seattle. She uses a variety of techniques, including sandblasting, etching, and printing with glass, and also works with other materials, including drawing. She changed her name to Ann Wolff.


Klaus Moje: Ceremonial Dance Formation, 1985


Moje was born in Germany but became an institution in the glass art world of Australia. He also lectured at Chihuly's Pilchuck Glass School, and did important work in Portland, OR,


He pioneered a delicate and fragile technique called Fused Glass that involves melting and recombining different colored glass rods and the thin strips created by slicing them.


Czeslaw Zuber: Form and Emptiness, 1990


After college, Zuber began his career in industrial glassworks in his native Poland, but moved to Paris in 1982 where he discovered his own highly colorful expressive style.


Jan Fišar: Contact, 1995


Fišar trained as a sculptor in his native Czech Republic, and it shows in the sculptural forms he used in his glass art.


Mark Bokesch-Parsons: The Onlooker, 1997


From Birmingham, England, Bokesch-Parsons studied and now has a studio in Bloomington, Illinois. He frequently depicts the human form.


Hank Murta Adams: "Paste Head", 1997


Adams studied under the legendary Chihuly in the 1970s and is now Creative Director of the glass studio at the Wheaton Arts and Cultural Center in Millville, New Jersey.


Jörg Hanewski: In Search, 2009


Hanewski works in Witten, Germany and uses glassblowing techniques to produce organic forms.


Shige Fujishiro: "Seductress", 2012


Fujishiro was born and studied art in Hiroshima, and now lives and works both there and in Hanover, Germany.


Stephen Cone Weeks: Lead, Kindly Light (Innocense), 2012


A native of Canada, weeks studied glass art in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but worked mostly on paper until 1996. The next year, he began drawing and painting on glass. He lives in Düsseldorf.


Katharina Madarthaner: untitled, 2013


Born in Meerbusch, Germany in 1982, Madarthaner has quickly established her reputation, exhibiting and publishing widely, and lecturing at several German art schools and universities.


Ayako Tani: Murmuration, 2018


Japanese artist Ayako Tani is an assistant glassblower at the University of Glasgow. This work won the Kunstapalast's 2019 biennial Jutta Cuny-Franz Talent Award.



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