Tracing a Movement

Voices of Contemporary Glass: The Heineman Collection
By Tina Oldknow, contribution by Cristine Russell
The Corning Museum of Glass
Corning, New York
cmog.org

Hudson Hills Press
Manchester, Vermont
$85
hudsonhills.com

The Chicago philanthropist Ben W. Heineman Sr. purchased his first work of contemporary glass, a Harvey Littleton sculpture, in 1984, and was immediately hooked. For more than 20 years thereafter, Heineman and his wife, Natalie, continued to collect glass, with an emphasis on abstraction, ultimately assembling 240 objects, including Mary Shaffer’s Orange 26 MS037. The collection is a nearly complete chronology of the American studio glass movement, though it also includes international artists.

In 2006, the Heinemans donated their collection to the Corning Museum of Glass, where it is now on view through January 3, 2010. Rather than donate to a general art museum, as did a number of collectors of craft-related materials, the Heinemans were determined to see their treasures housed in an institution committed to the preservation, documentation and display of glass.

This handsome volume presenting the entire collection sheds light on the Heinemans’ acquisition process and demonstrates the development of contemporary glass over more than three decades. Following Cristine Russell’s biographical sketch of the Heinemans, Tina Oldknow, curator of modern glass at Corning, discusses Ben Heineman’s approach to acquisition and his taste. This visual chronicle reflects the rapid rate at which the couple acquired, as well as their amassing of “subcollections” of pieces by particular artists, among them studio glass pioneers Mark Peiser, David Huchthausen, Dale Chihuly and Joel Philip Myers.

In the “Artists and Artworks” section, the heart of the book, the objects in the collection are shown along with portraits of the artists and quotations, “voices,” often those of the artist but just as often those of curators, historians or art critics—all amounting to a stylish family album of the studio glass movement and those involved with this international phenomenon. Reflecting the high quality of the Heineman Collection and the commitment of the Corning Museum, this book will surely be a significant resource in unpacking this recent history.