Gunnar Nylund: Ceramics

Gunnar Nylund

Gunnar Nylund

Gunnar Nylund

Gunnar Nylund

Gunnar Nylund

Gunnar Nylund

Gunnar Nylund (1904–1997) was a leading Scandinavian Modernist working as a sculptor and ceramics designer in both Denmark and Sweden. He is perhaps best known for for his extraordinary work while artistic director at the Rörstrand. 

Trained in Copenhagen as an architect, he joined the design studio of Bing & Grondahl. He joined Nathalie Krebs in 1929 to form the small studio pottery Saxbo. 

Beginning in 1930, he began a highly productive period with Rörstrand that was to last until 1958. At Rörstrand, Nylund developed innovative feldspar matte glazes also popularized by Berndt Friberg and Carl-Harry Stålhane. 

After working with Nymolle, he became a design consultant to Rörstrand and Stromberg before forming his own studio, Designia. 

Dan Dailey: Glass Art

Dan Dailey

Dan Dailey

Dan Dailey

Dan Dailey

Dan Dailey

Dan Dailey

American visual artist Dan Dailey has simultaneously produced sculpture and functional art with an emphasis on lighting since 1970. Made primarily from glass and metal, every piece of work begins with a drawing. Dailey's drawings and the objects they inspire depict human character and the world we inhabit, with many familiar forms rendered iconic. Dailey's myriad series explore extraordinary concepts with a broad range of themes and styles. These attributes and his forty years of achievement and recognition have made Dan Dailey a prominent artist in the history of glass, and unique among American artists.

Dailey was born in 1947 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Philadelphia College of Art. Dailey received his Master of Fine Arts degree from the Rhode Island School of Design. He is Professor Emeritus at Massachusetts College of Art in Boston, where he founded the Glass Department in 1973. He has taught at numerous schools including Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Rhode Island School of Design, the Pilchuck Glass School and the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, and he has given lectures and workshops throughout the United States, Europe and Japan. Dailey's emphasis on the individual development of his students' sculptural concepts has defined his approach to teaching. He now works in his New Hampshire studio with the help of a staff of assistants.

Since 1971, Dailey has participated in over 250 group, juried, and invitational exhibitions, and has had numerous one-person museum and gallery exhibits including a major retrospective at the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution. He has completed more than 70 architectural commissions for corporate headquarters, hospitals, municipalities, a county courthouse, a performing arts center, and private residences. His work is represented in over 45 museum collections around the world. 

Paul Stankard Glass Paperweights

Paul Stankard is widely considered "the father of the modern American glass paperweight."

In the early 1960s, paperweights made by other American paperweight makers showcased brightly colored crafty-type flowers that were not botanically accurate. 

Stankard labored to make his glass floral designs look more natural and botanically life-like. His glass flowers were so real looking that many people mistakenly thought that he had found a way to encase actual flowers in glass. Soon thereafter, paperweight makers (mostly American) were following Stankard's lead.

Stankard, who is now an internationally acclaimed artist, is largely credited with changing the status of glass paperweights from that of craft to that of fine art. Among many other museums, Stankard's work is exhibited at The Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC; the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, New York; the Musée des Arts Décoratifs and the Musée du Louvre in Paris, France; the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, England; and The Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, New York.

Paul Stankard

Paul Stankard

Paul Stankard

Paul Stankard

Paul Stankard

Paul Stankard

Paul Stankard