Spectacular full-color photographs and a fascinating text trace the history of glassmaking in America, from the functional bottles, bowls, flasks, goblets, and oil lamps of colonial times to stunning pieces of contemporary glass art. 140 full-color photographs.

"Glass can be decorative or utilitarian, and its forms often reflect technological innovations and social change. Drawing on an insightful selection from the Yale University Art Gallery and other collections at Yale, American Glass illuminates the vital and often intimate roles that glass has played in the nation's art and culture. Spectacularly illustrated, the publication showcases eighteenth-century mold-blown vessels, nineteenth-century pressed glass, innovative studio work, and luminous stained-glass windows by John La Farge and Louis Comfort Tiffany, the latter reproduced as a lush gatefold. These are considered alongside beguiling objects that broaden our expectations of glass and speak to the centrality of the medium in American life, including one of the oldest complex microscopes in the United States, an early Edison light bulb, glass-plate photography, jewelry, and more. With an essay on the history of collecting American glass and discussions of each object that present new scholarship, this engaging book tells the long and rich history of glass in America--from prehistoric minerals to contemporary sculptures"--Dust jacket front flap.

Magnificent motifs reproduced from rare original edition: florals, foliates, female figures, pastoral landscapes, more. Ideas for craftspeople and designers.

A visual survey of stained glass from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries evaluates the myriad elements, from color and light to imagery and shaping, that define the art form, in a historical tribute that examines architectural methods.

"In 1945, Edith Farnsworth asked the German architect Mies van der Rohe, already renowned for his avant-garde buildings, to design a weekend home for her outside of Chicago. Edith was a woman ahead of her time--unmarried, she was a distinguished medical researcher, whose discoveries put her in contention for the Nobel Prize, as well as an accomplished violinist, translator, and poet. The two quickly began an intimate relationship, spending weekends together, sharing interests in transcendental philosophy, Catholic mysticism, wine-soaked picnics, and architecture. Their collaboration would produce one of the most important works of architecture of all time, a blindingly original house made up almost entirely of glass and steel. But the minimalist marvel, built in 1951, was plagued by cost over-runs and a sudden chilling of the two friends' mutual affection. Though the building became world-famous, Farnsworth found it impossible to live in the transparent house, and she began a public campaign against him, cheered on by Frank Lloyd Wright. Mies, in turn, sued her for unpaid monies. The ensuing trial covered not just the missing funds and the structural weaknesses of the home, but turned into a trial of modernist art and architecture itself. Interweaving personal drama and cultural history, Alex Beam presents a stylish, enthralling tapestry of a tale, illuminating the fascinating history behind one of the twentieth-century's most beautiful and significant architectural projects"--

This monumental new book is the first to celebrate the greatest and most iconic paintings from the encyclopedic collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, one of the largest, most important, and most beloved museums in the world. This impressive volume's broad sweep of material, all from a single museum, makes it at once a universal history of painting and the ideal introduction to the iconic masterworks of this world-renowned institution. More than 1,000 lavish color illustrations and details of 500 masterpiece paintings, created over 5,000 years in cultures across the globe, are presented chronologically from the dawn of civilization to the present. These works represent a grand tour of painting from ancient Egypt and classical antiquity and prized Byzantine and medieval altarpieces, to paintings from Asia, India, Africa and the Americas, and and the greatest European and North American masters. The Metropolitan Museum of Art includes and introduction and illuminating texts about each artwork written specially for this volume by Kathryn Calley Galitz, whose experience as both curator and educator at the Met makes her uniquely qualified. European and American artists include Duccio, El Greco, Raphael, Titian, Botticelli, Bronzino, Caravaggio, Turner, Velázquez, Goya, Rubens, Rembrandt, Brueghel, Vermeer, David, Renior, Monet, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne, Degas, Sargent, Homer, Matisse, Picasso, Pollock, Jasper Johns, and Warhol. The artworks are arranged in rough chronological order, without regard to geography or culture, offering a visual timeline of the history of painting, from the earliest examples on pottery jars made over five thousand years ago to canvases on which the paint has barely dried. Freed from the constraints imposed by the physical layout of the Museum, the paintings resonate anew; and this chronological framework reveals unexpected visual affinities among the works. For those wishing to experience the unparalleled breadth and depth of the Met's collection, or study masterpieces of painting from throughout history, this important volume is sure to become a classic cherished by art lovers around the world.

Louis Comfort Tiffany was highly skilled in jewellery design, ceramics, enamels, and metalwork but he is best known for his beautiful stained-glass designs. Using opalescent glass in a variety of colours and textures, he created a stunning range of jewel-like Art Nouveau works that influenced much of American modern art. This sumptuous new book features page after page of astounding work, showing Tiffany's skill as a colourist and a craftsman, with works that still inspire artists and audiences today.