Glass

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Year of Glass: Dutch Artistry
Written by Jasmine Keegan The United Nations has designated 2022 the International Year of Glass. Cooper Hewitt is celebrating the occasion with a yearlong series of posts focused on the medium of glass and museum conservation. Dutch glass artisans reached high levels of skill in ornamentation during the 18th century, as demonstrated in these beautifully decorated...
Year of Glass: Imitating the Ancient
Start the 2022 Year of Glass with a modern glassmaker inspired by ancient Roman models.
Image features a lighting catalogue page showing hanging lamps with large glass shades in various shapes and colors, all on a black background. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
Uplighting, Deco Style
A version of this post was originally published on June 2, 2016. Two rare Art Deco period catalogues in the collection of the Cooper Hewitt Design Library include illustrations with accompanying specifications and prices for more than 100 glass lighting fixtures manufactured in about 1930, by Meissner Glasraffinerie of Dresden, Germany. The factory was located...
Image features a broad-rimmed circular bowl on a tall base of assembled oval and globular glass forms of opaque or translucent blue, purple, white, and red. The bowl and base decorated with transparent rectangular panels, one blue and one green, and a wavy opaque red glass rod, all hung from brass hooks. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
A Serious Case of PoMo…
The bubble-like contours and dangling pieces of glass of this bowl are cartoonish and playful. The Efira Bowl was designed by Ettore Sottsass in 1986 for the important collective, Memphis, which he had founded five years earlier.[1] The bowl is a wonderful example of the objects produced by Memphis, which have been held up as...
Image features two circular bowls, one smaller than the other, made of translucent aqua-toned glass, their surfaces showing the textures and irregularities of the stone molds used to shape them. Please scroll down to read the blog post about these objects.
Glass Shaped in Volcanic Stone
Innovative designer, Emilio Godoy, first came to the museum’s attention for his concerns about environmental sustainability, materials, and efficiency in production. His Pablo and Pedro glass project emerged from “the analysis of the energy used in glass manufacturing, in particular, the energy and resources needed for the fabrication of metal molds” used to form glass...
Image features a tall conical vase with a narrow neck and flaring mouth, the opaque glass body showing peach- and amber-colored flowers on a yellow to deep crimson background. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
Vitrified Nature
To celebrate the opening of Nature by Design: Botanical Expressions (December 7, 2019-January 10, 2021), Object of the Day this week will feature objects from the exhibition. Growing up in Nancy, France, in the 1850s, Emile Gallé liked going to the city’s botanical gardens and walking the surrounding countryside of Lorraine. His interest in nature...
Image features a pitcher composed of a globular, translucent green glass body with a cylindrical neck covered in silver-plated metal with an inverted U-shaped handle, short spout, and an inset circular lid. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
“Without Light Everything is Lifeless”
Designer Massimo Vignelli was known for the sense of sophistication and refinement he brought to the product, graphic, and furniture design that he produced first in Italy, and later in the U.S. working with his wife Lella, also a designer.  While a student at the School of Architecture in Venice, Vignelli learned about glass from architect and glass...
It’s a bird! It’s a plane!… I think it’s a “b”!
This post was written by guest authors Martha Singer, Mette Carlsen, Jakki Godfrey, and Kerith Koss Schrager, a  team of contract conservators who carried out Cooper Hewitt’s recent glass rehousing project. Today we’re taking a behind-the-scenes look at the nitty-gritty of object numbering in the museum. Object numbers aid in tracking storage locations and other...
Glass Collection Storage at Cooper Hewitt
This post was written by guest authors Martha Singer, Mette Carlsen, Jakki Godfrey, and Kerith Koss Schrager, a  team of contract conservators who carried out Cooper Hewitt’s recent glass rehousing project. The Product Design and Decorative Arts department at Cooper Hewitt contains over 40,000 objects in all, and has a long history of collecting glass...
Image features a cylindrical vase of thick-walled clear glass with internal decoration of small translucent green discs, many topped by a small air bubble. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
A Panther with Leopard Spots
Saara Hopea (later Saara Hopea-Untracht) began her career as a furniture and lamp designer, but started designing glassware in about 1952, at a time when Finnish design was gaining prominence on the world stage for its strong attention to materials and sense of organic form in a modern idiom. Kaj Frank, Hopea’s former teacher at...
Conserving the Surtout de Table: Cut Glass
Written by Sarah Barack, Head of Conservation, Senior Objects Conservator Thanks to a generous gift from the Smithsonian Women’s Committee, Cooper Hewitt’s spectacular surtout de table centerpiece was the focus of a recent technical study and conservation treatment by the museum’s conservation department. In this series of posts, conservators will be sharing the results of...
Image features group diamond-shaped glass vases of different heights and colors in overlapping arrangement reminiscent of a cityscape. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this group of objects.
Color Landscaping with Glass Vases
Ruutu, Finnish for diamond or square, is the theme that is carried across the five sizes and seven hues of these modular glass vases. The vessels, created by French designers (and brothers), Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec for the Finnish glass firm, Iittala, share a minimal, rectilinear style. Like other works by the Bouroullecs, the Ruutu...
Image features Mirror in large, carved and gilded vertical frame with double arch at top with pyramid of asymmetrical and tall curved leaf forms at each corner which flow into serpentine curves and then join straight sides; flowers entwined around straight sides; bottom rail duplicates curve at top rail and has asymmetrical group of foliage carved at center. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
Reflections on Light
Mirrors, a commonplace fixture in the modern world, were not always the familiar accessory that they are today. Although some form of mirror has existed since ancient times, mirrors such as this 18th-century example used early industrial processes to create the fragile, metal-coated glass panes placed within a decorative frame. During the 18th century glass-making...
Image features vessel with longated conical shaped bowl; bowl has engraved decoration of female figure sitting on ruffled banner, scalloped ornamental bands at top and bottom and stars spaced throughout. Tall, thin six-sided stem with small notches on corners. Flat circular foot with ornamental bands that match bowl. Lid tapers to tall six-sided notched finial with knop. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
Swedish Grace in Glass
This tall glass covered vessel was designed in 1923, by Edward Hald, artistic director of the Orrefors glassworks in Sweden. It features engraved decoration of a female figure seated on a fluttering banner, amid a field of stars bordered by scalloped bands. The delicate star and band motifs are carried through in the vessel’s tapered cover...
Image features set of 18 clear glass rectangular and square modular, nesting food and beverage storage containers and lids. Containers are of differing heights (about 2" to 6"), widths, and depths. Please scroll down to read the blog post about this object.
KUBUS – A STYLISH 1930s FRIDGE ACCESSORY
Author: Zenia Malmer The ‘Kubus’ clear glass stacking and modular storage system was created in 1938 by German designer Wilhelm Wagenfeld (1900-90), who frequented the Bauhaus school in the former Weimar Republic. Kubus, which was manufactured by Lausitzer Glasverein, was one of Wagenfeld’s most well-known affordable designs in pressed glass that he created for commercial...