"Pots are earthbound; glass has an inner light, a kind of soul,” says Dan Klein. As a dealer in modern and contemporary glass he may be biased, but as a former director of 20th-century decorative art at both Christie’s and Phillips he also has the wider perspective.
His current task is to open the eyes of British collectors to the creative possibilities in contemporary glass, a message enthusiastically received in the US where glass sculptures regularly sell for upwards of $100,000. There are keen collectors in the UK, notably Elton John, Sir David Attenborough and Michael Portillo, but glass is associated with craft, and contemporary craft, unlike contemporary art, has an undeserved image problem.
Last month Bonhams held the first auction of modern and contemporary glass in London, with Klein acting as an adviser: to freshen the contents he asked 15 leading and emerging glassmakers (from the 2,000 now working in the UK) to create one-off pieces for the sale.
The results were mixed. The auction room was packed, with overseas bidders acquiring a quarter of the items, but only half the 164 lots on offer sold. (However, all but one of the commissioned sculptures found buyers.) Clare Beck of dealer Adrian Sassoon admits: “It was disappointing that it did not do better and a bit of a surprise considering the growth of interest. Perhaps a secondary market in glass has not yet become established.” However Bonhams reckoned the total of £200,000 encouraging enough to plan another auction in 18 months’ time.
It is for the best if the contemporary glass market develops slowly, in contrast to the rollercoaster upheavals that have convulsed contemporary art. Although glass has a history stretching back 3,500 years, the glass sculptures attracting interest today date back less than 50 years. It was in 1962 that Harvey Littleton melted glass in a homemade pot furnace in the grounds of the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio, and liberated glass from the factory to the small workshop, allowing studio glass to emerge as a rival to studio ceramics. The creative possibilities in studio glass were quickly realised, most notably in the US, the Czech Republic and Australia. Progress in the UK was slow but this is changing. “Of all the crafts it is glass that is making the breakthrough,” says Mark Oliver, director of decorative arts at Bonhams.
“Now that people are throwing clutter out of their homes and going minimalist, one well-lit piece of glass can make a greater impact than contemporary art.”
Studio glassmaking is now taught in many British art schools, most notably at Sunderland, Wolverhampton, Farnham and the RCA, and in 2004 the Victoria & Albert Museum opened a gallery devoted to contemporary glass. Last month the Craft Council held Collect, its annual selling fair, which attracted over 10,000 visitors to the Saatchi Gallery, where 13 galleries were successfully offering glass. Sassoon alone sold 40 pieces and crafts gallery Katy Jones four works by Ritsue Mishima priced between £4,400 and £7,500.
To help things along The Art Fund gave £75,000 to museums who wanted to add contemporary craft from the fair to their collections and two invested in glass: the National Museum of Wales bought a piece by Rachael Woodman for £7,500 (although small works by this glassmaker were on offer for £600) and the V&A acquired “Free-Essence -6” by Japanese artist Niyoko Ikuta, for £5,700. Another enthusiast for contemporary glass is the National Galleries of Scotland, which paid £7,200 at Bonhams for a wing goblet by Lucio Bubacco.
Perhaps the greatest appeal of contemporary glass is that the entry price for new collectors seeking attractive original sculptures can be a few hundred pounds. At the Bonhams auction “Soft cylinder”, a colourful bowl by Dale Chihuly, the biggest name in contemporary glassmaking, made just £840, while the highest price was the £13,800 which secured “Stonehenge”, a vase by Chihuly’s longtime associate William Morris. In comparison with contemporary art this is small change.
However, the prices commanded by the most admired glassmakers are rising rapidly: a decade ago one of Anna Dickinson’s vessels inspired by the antique might be acquired for £50; two sold at Bonhams for £5,400 each. With such inflation, and relatively few knowledgeable dealers (and collectors), questionable practices have already emerged. In the US, where the market is more sophisticated, many dealers take work on commission from the glassmakers and talk up prices.
For instance, there have been doubts about the reliability of the record $400,000 paid in New York for a sculpture by the pioneering Czech craftsman Stanislav Libensky. Another work by Libensky, “Queen”, a red cast glass sculpture almost 70cm high, also caused controversy at Bonhams. It was actually created after his death, under the supervision of his wife and fellow glassmaker Jaroslava Brychtova, from a mould. The appearance of limited editions of popular pieces can confuse potential collectors, and although “Queen” was estimated at up to £15,000 it went for £10,800. It had previously sold privately for a reputed £40,000.
A problem for prospective collectors of modern glass is that there is only one gallery in the UK, Vessel, specialising solely in glass. The major dealers, such as Klein and Sassoon, represent the leading glassmakers but lack exhibition space. For anyone interested, the first port of call should be the Crafts Council, which holds portfolios of all the leading British makers.
Adrian Sassoon will be showing at the International Ceramics Fair at London’s Park Lane Hotel this month (June 11-14) while in October the Craft Council holds Origin, a selling exhibition that includes glass, in the grounds of Somerset House. If you cannot wait, contemporary glass features in a 20th-century design auction that Bonhams is holding in New York on Thursday, where work by William Morris, Toots Zynsky and William Carson, who all sold well at Bonhams in London, is on offer, with estimates below $10,000. Despite its long collecting history decorative glass still seems remarkably cheap."
Thorncroft, A. "Glass is making the breakthrough." June 6, 2009. Financial Times, website accessed June 8, 2009. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/5e31a4e2-50a4-11de-9530-00144feabdc0.html
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