The Povey Brothers: Harbingers of Art Glass in the Pacific Northwest

Part of a window in the Elsinore Theater in Salem, Oregon.
Since there were no design notes found, it is unclear whether
this is depicting Macbeth or Hamlet (the Elsinore Theater
was designed and named for Hamlet's Danish castle.)

The Pacific Northwest is a Mecca for art glass.  Oregon has perhaps more than their fair share of glass artists and glass producers.  Nor is this a recent thing.  One of the most famous and largest art glass companies in Oregon was a bustling force in the years 1888-1928.  The Povey Brothers Studio, also known as Povey Brothers Art Glass Works or Povey Brothers Glass Company, was making windows for customers throughout the West.

Circa 1890 trade card.  Image courtesy of eBay.

Portland, where the Povey Brothers Studio was based, at the time had a population of 42,000.  Today Portland's population is closer to 585,000, and is home to many art glass businesses, and two well-known glass manufacturers, Bullseye and Uroboros.  In their era, Povey Brothers was known as the "Tiffany of the Northwest", and many of their windows can be found in historic buildings as well as in homes, businesses, and churches.  These are of incredible beauty and quality.

Oregon State Seal skylight in the courtroom of the Oregon Supreme Court
Building in Salem, Oregon (detail).  Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

David Lincoln Povey founded the company.  His family had been in the stained glass business for generations and his father had immigrated from England.  David Povey formed the company with his brother John, who was the main craftsman while David did the designing.  Another brother handled the business end, and they had two sisters who also worked with them.  At their height they had 25 employees.

Top:  Detail of Lady Macbeth.  Bottom:  Detail of Polonius.
Both from the Elsinore Theater.

When David died in 1924 his sons took over.  They hired Albert Gerlach, who remained with the company when it was later sold to W. P. Fuller in 1930.  John Povey died in 1917.  Portland architect Polly Povey Thompson, David's daughter, had planned to write a book on the Poveys but died in 1994 before completing it.

Window from Old St. Peter's in the Dalles.  Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

Windows from the Deepwood Estate in Salem.  Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

The studio used a variety of glass - rippled, crackled, machine-rolled - buying much of it from Europe, but also from Kokomo in Indiana.  They used a lot of small, faceted pieces, known as "jewels", which is one of the distinctions of their style.  Many of their windows, particularly their religious ones, had painted glass pieces.  They also used a lot of clear glass for backgrounds, to allow what light was available to enter the building, as the Pacific Northwest is known for being overcast.

Top:  detail of Hamlet, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern.  Bottom:  detail of the
Merchants of Venice.  Both at the Elsinore Theater.

Patrons at that time used stained glass windows as a show of wealth and status. Arts and Crafts style motifs were common, as were Art Nouveau.  One of the signature items in the studio's windows was dogwood, a popular selection for those styles.  David Povey designed almost all the studio's windows.  Residential designs were mostly of standard size, but the ones commissioned by businesses and churches were often imposing and so huge they had to be done in panels.

From the First Congregational Church in Portland.
Image courtesy of www.portlandoregondailyphoto.com.

At first none of their windows were signed, leading other glass artists to imitate and impersonate the studio's work.  In 1923, David Povey began signing the windows with the year of completion and "Povey Brothers Studio" on them.

Top and bottom from the First Congregational Church in Portland.

Many of their extant works are in buildings that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  It is quite a distinction to have a Povey window, and they are frequently available for purchase for buyers who wish to obtain a piece of history, and a beautiful one at that.

This Povey window is available for purchase for $4,200 from this site.

Because of the workmanship involved in a well-done piece, and the price of materials and the time required, stained glass windows are still a luxury item.  The Poveys brought their craft from England and solidly established themselves in the U.S., carrying on and retaining a tradition that is still respected.  If you are in Oregon, you should visit these gorgeous works of art.

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Images from the Elsinore Theater courtesy of this site.
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Laurelton Hall

Tiffany lamps.   Image courtesy of Ophir/Flickr.

The name "Tiffany" evokes wondrous stained glass images, especially lamps.  I remember when I was a young girl any lamp that looked like a stained glass one was called a "Tiffany" lamp, even if it was made of colored plastic.  Now they are called "Tiffany-style lamps", but that is often a dubious connection.

Louis Comfort Tiffany, circa 1908.
Image courtesy of LOC.

Louis Comfort Tiffany was an American artist and designer best known for his stained glass, but he also worked in jewelry, enamel, metalwork, ceramics, blown glass, and glass mosaics.  He is the American artist most representative of the Art Nouveau movement.

"Market Day Outside the Walls of Tangiers, Morocco" 1873.
Image courtesy of the Smithsonian.

Born in New York in 1848, his first training as an artist was in painting, studying in both New York and Paris.  He became interested in glassmaking and began working at several glass houses in Brooklyn.  In 1879, he formed "Louis Comfort Tiffany and Associated American Artists" with Samuel Colman, Lockwood de Forest, and Candace Wheeler.  The business was successful.

The library opens up to a conservatory in Mark Twain's home.  Interior
design by Louis Comfort Tiffany and Associated American Artists.
Image courtesy of The Mark Twain House and Museum.

In 1881, he designed the interior of the Mark Twain House in Hartford, Connecticut.  But the firm's most noteworthy assignment was in 1882, when Chester Arthur refused to move into the White House until it had been redone. Tiffany redid the East Room, the Blue Room, the Red Room, the East Dining Room, and the Entrance Hall.  He refurnished , repainted, designed mantelpieces, wallpapers, and added Tiffany glass to the gaslight fixtures.  He also did windows, and added the floor-to-ceiling glass screen in the Entrance Hall.

The Entrance Hall in 1882 with Tiffany glass screen to left.
Photo by Frances Benjamin Johnson, White House Historical Association.

The firm was disbanded in 1885 when Tiffany decided to concentrate on glass and opened the Tiffany Studios.  Because he could not get the glass he wanted, he made his own.  He began using opalescent glass in a wide array of colors and textures.  This was in contrast to the dominant style used then, which consisted of colorless glass that was painted.  The use of colored glass was considered the new American style of stained glass, and other American artists adopted it.

Blown favrile glass, 1896-1902 by Tiffany Glass.  Favrile was a type of glass
designed and named by Tiffany.  It is an iridescent art glass where the color is
embedded in the glass.  He also used the glass in stained glass windows.
Image courtesy of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

But Tiffany used all of his artistic skills in all the media he worked in to create his own home, Laurelton Hall.  This was in Laurel Hollow, Long Island, New York. The 65-room mansion, and 600 acre estate was completed in 1905, and housed many of his best works.  Every aspect of it, inside and out, was designed by him.

The front of Laurelton Hall.

Rear view of Laurelton Hall.

In 1918 it became the location for a residential school for artists called The Tiffany Art Foundation.  A separate building was made for the Tiffany Chapel, which had several significant windows, and a separate art gallery building.  The interior of the Chapel was one that Tiffany had created for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.  Tiffany set up a foundation to support the art school, museum, and studio.

The "Spring" fountain.

Fountain overlooking Cold Harbor

Glass-covered connecting bridge.

After his death in 1933, the estate fell into disrepair.  The Foundation suffered from financial problems, and sold Laurelton Hall in 1949.  It had cost about $2 million to build, including landscaping the grounds, but it was sold for only $10,000.  A fire destroyed much of what remained in 1957.

Living room.

Reconstructed loggia at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Details of capitols of the loggia.

Hugh McKean had been a fellow at Laurelton Hall when he was a young man.  At the invitation of Tiffany's daughter he and his wife, Jeannette Genius McKean, salvaged what they could after the fire, and were able to remove a majority of the windows and some of the other architectural pieces.  They then spent the next 30 years collecting as much of Tiffany's work as they could.  Eventually they had the world's foremost Tiffany collection composed of the finest of his work from all the media he had mastered.

Hugh McKean looking over the fire damage, circa 1957.
Image courtesy of the Morse Museum.

In 1942 the McKeans had founded the Morse Museum of American Art on the campus of Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida.  Named for Mrs. McKean's grandfather, Charles Hosmer Morse - an industrialist and philanthropist - the museum was relocated in 1977 in Winter Park.  In 1995, a new museum was constructed from a former bank and office buildings, and in 1999, the museum built a new gallery with 6,000 square feet of space to house the Tiffany collection. This was at the cost of $5 billion.

A daffodil capitol from the daffodil terrace.  Each petal is made of glass
from 12 different molds.  Stems are of blue-green glass embedded in concrete.
Photo courtesy of Raymond Martinot/Morse Museum.

The daffodil terrace reconstructed at the Morse Museum.
The original terrace served as the entry to Laurelton Hall.

The centerpiece of this private museum is the Tiffany collection.  The materials from Laurelton Hall include Tiffany's most prized paintings, art glass, pottery, and furniture, as well as windows and lamps.  Most of these objects were from international expositions.  There are also archival materials at the museum, including Tiffany's letters, designs, photographs, plans, and ephemera.

Wisteria panel.  Image courtesy of the Morse Museum.

Thankfully, the McKeans had the foresight and means to see that Tiffany's outstanding work was not lost.  It is sad that, unlike other countries, the United States does not have a National Treasures program. If it had, Laurelton Hall might have survived intact - a testimony to an amazing American artist.

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Photographs of Laurelton Hall courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Check out the Morse Museum website

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The Phantasmagorical Art of Lucio Bubacco

Devils and Angels

Angels and devils compete, mythological figures abound, and all are frozen in vibrant and shiny colors.  These are the art glass creations of Venetian artist Lucio Bubacco.

Image courtesy Sarah Hornik/flickr.

He was born in Venice on the island of Murano, internationally famous since the 14th century for glassmaking, the son of a glassmaker.  Traveling with his father, he became aware of the different ways that glass was being used all over the world.

Eden

He began by doing lampwork, and a lot of self-study.  An important part of the preparation for his art was drawing.  He wanted to translate what he was able to draw on paper into glass.  He was always attracted to the human figure, and began to explore interpretations of it in painting, then clay, before taking it to glass.  Sculpting in clay would seem a necessary step to the difficulties of sculpting with glass.

Gold Grape Bacchanal

Over time he studied at various international schools.  Part of the formal education he sought, in order to bring to life his glass dreams, was attending WheatonArts (then Wheaton Village) in New Jersey, home of the Museum of American Glass.  This site is where some of the greatest international glass artists have worked, and he claims his time there was fundamental in his development as an artist.

Carnivale

At WheatonArts he availed himself of their program that was established to provide contemporary glass artists with the facilities and equipment to develop their art - The Creative Glass Center of America.

Grape harvest with Bacchus

In Murano he had bravely set up shop among traditional glassmakers.  Undaunted, he pushed what he had learned, pursuing his own course of education about creating with glass to the limits, incorporating lampwork with blown and cast glass.

Sun Dance

He has had numerous shows all over the globe, and his work can be found in many museums.  He has taught at the Pilchuck Glass School, Sydney College of the Arts, the Corning Museum of Glass, and at the International Glass Workshop in Venice, among other places.

Moon woman

Two stamps for the 2005 Venice Regatta, held every year on the first Sunday of September, featured art pieces by Bubacco.  The first is a contest between an angel and a devil; the second features a gondolier dressed in traditional 18th century clothing.

His work makes many references to the pre-Christian, Mediterranean culture and its mythological figures, and that may be reflective of his Mediterranean upbringing. Wonderful, inventive, inspiring, and fantastic, his pieces are not only greatly imaginative, but beautifully executed and crafted.

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Unless otherwise noted all images courtesy of the artist's website.

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Beyond Glass Slippers

"Floating World" exhibit of Karen LaMonte's work, 2011.

Unlike animals, people seem to have two physical appearances:  our bodies and how we present them, from head to toe.  Some people have little or no concern about appearance and others spent inordinate amounts of time contriving for an exact look.  This is an interesting topic, and glass artist and sculptor Karen LaMonte plays with the concept in her art.

LaMonte explores the contrast between real skin and social skin.  Just like a lot of people, she uses clothing, or rather the form of clothing, to project social information.  Or maybe to camouflage or obscure information, instead.  Only LaMonte uses the body in absentia.  She refers to clothing as a "vestmentary envelope".

She is well-known for her life-size sculptures in ceramic, bronze, and most interestingly cast glass.  She currently lives and works in the Czech Republic, but is from the U.S.  She graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1990. She was awarded a fellowship to the Creative Glass Center of America in Millville, New Jersey right after graduation.  Then she moved to Brooklyn and worked at a not-for-profit public access glass studio.  She began working in blown and cast glass at this time, and displaying her work in galleries.

In 1999 she received a Fullbright Fellowship to work in the Czech Republic.  She began working at the  Pelechov glass casting studio in Eastern Bohemia.  While she was here she created her famous sculpture Vestige, a life-size cast glass sculpture of a dress.  It took one year to complete and during the process new technologies were developed, including a lost wax technique.  This piece is seminal, not only for her own oeuvre of work, but in the field of art glass.

Karen LaMonte and Vestige.  Art critic Arthur Danto wrote that the dress
belonged to a wearer that was captured in a moment of time, a point in history.
If she were still alive she would no longer look like this.  Therefore there is a
double melancholy in the piece - that of fashion and bodily changes.
"Their poetry is the poetry of beauty and loss."

Her interest in transparency manifested in monotype prints that she called "sartoriotypes" (sartorial meaning related to tailored clothes, and type meaning image or impression).  These works were shown along with her cast glass sculptures in 2002 in Venice, Italy.

Using mirrors and photography, she began a new line of art.  These mirrors were exhibited in Prague, Czech Republic, and in Tacoma, Washington at solo exhibitions of her work.  These are glass cast hand mirrors with photo-etched steel.

The Lark Mirrors, above and below.

In 2006, she was awarded the Creative Artists Exchange Fellowship from the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts.  She spent seven months studying the kimono as part of an examination of Japanese concepts of clothing and social language, thus looking at the same themes through the eyes of a different culture.

Bronze kimono.

Ceramic kimono.

Child's kimono in cast glass.

In 2009, she studied the use of ceramics at the European Ceramic Work Centre, and was the recipient of the Corning Museum of Glass/Kohler Arts Center Joint Residency for her work in glass and ceramics.

She has received many awards, and her work is featured in the permanent collections of museums in Germany, France, Australia, and all across the United States, including the forthcoming Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.  She has also had a number of exhibitions.

Not only are her concepts unique and fascinating, but so are the processes.  These are not easy to create but that doesn't seem to stop her.  She has achieved a body of timeless art - well worth the time and energy that went into their creation.

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Images courtesy of the artist.

Please visit her website to see more of her work.

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