The Art Glass

Art glass normally means the modern art glassreferred toglass made for decorative use, usually
movement inwhich individual artists working aloneby teams of factory workers, takingglass from
or with a few assistants to create worksfromfurnaces with a thousand or more pounds of
molten glass in relatively small furnaces of a fewglass. This form of artglass, of which Tiffany and
hundred pounds ofglass. It began in the earlySteuben in the U.S.A., Galléin France and
1960s and showed continued growth through theHoya Crystal in Japan and Kosta
endof the century. The glass objects created areclass=SpellE>Boda in Sweden are perhaps the
not primarily utilitarian but areintended to make abest known, grew out of thefactory system in
sculptural or decorative statement. On thewhich all glass objects were hand or mold blown
market, theirprices may range from a fewby teams of 4or more men. In fact, the turn of
hundred to tens of thousands of dollars (US).the 19th Century was the height of the oldart
Thebest known of the moderns are Dale Chihuly,glass movement while the factory glass blowers
who usesmany of the best independent glasswere being replaced bymechanical bottle blowing
workers to create his large and colorfulworks andand continuous window glass. In the factory,
Hans Godo Frabel,who creates his art togethereverymember of the team does the same job
with a team of studio glass artists.repeatedly turning out dozens or hundredsof the
Prior to the early 1960s, art glass would havesame item each day.