Current exhibitions from the Museum’s collection
For specific closing dates, check the Museum’s website at https://www.lywam.org/exhibitions/current-exhibitions/
Vernon Brejcha, Summer Dipper, 1983, glass
Glass Shines This Spring at the Woodson Art Museum
Two glass exhibitions open Saturday, March 5, and will be enlivened by ten days of glassmaking demonstrations beginning in late April at the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, always admission free.
The two exhibitions this spring, “Art Deco Glass from the Huchthausen Collection” and “Molten: 30 Years of American Glass” from the Woodson Art Museum’s collection, coincide with and celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Studio Glass movement and the United Nations International Year of Glass 2022.
Glowing, molten glass will be transformed into sparkling objects throughout the narrated glassmaking demonstrations, April 29-May 8, in the Corning Museum of Glass Mobile Hot Shop, a visually spectacular and fully functioning glassmaking studio on wheels converted from a semitrailer, that will set up shop on the Woodson Art Museum’s campus.
Hot Shop visitors will experience the sights and sounds of hot glass being transformed into objects of utility and art during glassmaking demonstrations, Friday, April 29 through Sunday, May 8, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. The Mobile Hot Shop’s three-person glassblowing team demystifies the properties and processes that make glass one of the world’s oldest and most favored materials for functional and aesthetic objects. Visitors drop in to watch the artists work, listen to their process descriptions, ask questions, and view finished work as it is placed into the annealing oven to cool.
During Hot Shop Talk on Thursday, May 5, 5:30-6:30 p.m., Corning Museum of Glass Mobile Hot Shop visiting artists share insights into the Art Deco movement’s influence on functional and fine-art glass design.
The Judd S. Alexander Foundation is the Mobile Hot Shop presenting sponsor. Mobile Hot Shop support is provided by a Community Arts Grant from the Community Foundation of North Central Wisconsin, with funds provided by the Wisconsin Arts Board, a state agency, the Community Foundation, and the B.A. & Esther Greenheck Foundation.
Two Glass Exhibitions Glisten
The artistry, tools, and techniques employed to produce a range of art glass during the Mobile Hot Shop glassmaking demonstrations complement the two exhibitions on view in the galleries, featuring Art Deco designs from the 1920s and 1930s as well as later twentieth-century glass from the Woodson Art Museum’s collection.
Clean lines, geometric shapes, and bright colors characterize “Art Deco Glass from the David Huchthausen Collection,” on view March 5 through June 5 and organized by the Museum of Glass, Tacoma, Washington. Emerging in contrast to Art Nouveau’s ornate style amid World War I austerity, Art Deco glass fell out of favor after World War II, and regained popularity in the 1970s when Huchthausen began collecting in earnest. The exhibition includes glass by iconic Art Deco studios and collected by Huchthausen, a glass artist with Wisconsin roots whose work altered the history of contemporary glass. After discovering and experimenting with an abandoned glass furnace in 1970 while a student at the then University of Wisconsin-Marathon County in Wausau, Huchthausen later became Harvey K. Littleton’s graduate assistant at UW-Madison and went on to become a Fulbright scholar, university professor, and museum consultant. For the Woodson Art Museum, Huchthausen developed “Americans in Glass” exhibitions in 1978, 1981, and 1984 that documented the evolution of American studio glass from its early emphasis on blown forms and hot working to an explosion of sculptural and conceptual forms. UMR, a United Healthcare Company, is the presenting sponsor of “Art Deco Glass.”
Glass artwork from the Woodson Art Museum collection is featured in “Molten: 30 Years of American Glass” this spring and summer exemplifies the wide-ranging studio glass experimentation of the 1970s through the 1990s. The Studio Glass movement that extended from Wisconsin to the East and West Coasts through a student-teacher network led by glass artist Harvey K. Littleton was marked by a new approach to glassmaking. In a radical departure from glass manufactured in factories, studio glass was designed and created by the same person – the artist. “Molten” showcases the inventive experimentation of this new approach, fusing designer and maker, that continues to fuel artistic possibilities.
Two Student Exhibitions on View
The 45th annual “Student Art Exhibition,” on view February 26 through April 10, celebrates Youth Art Month and the creative efforts of central and north central Wisconsin students in grades 9-12. Each March, the nation promotes art education by focusing on student work. The exhibition is open to art educators teaching in public, parochial, and home schools in central and north central Wisconsin.
Portfolio artworks by students in Wausau East High School’s International Baccalaureate Art Program are featured at the Woodson Art Museum in “exh-IB-ition,” April 15 through June 3, coordinated by art department chair Joel Pataconi and the Woodson Art Museum. During artist presentations on Thursday, June 2, 5:30-6:30 p.m., this year’s IB Art Program students share insights into their work.
