Portland Museum Of Art Celebrates New Glass And Ceramics Installation

PORTLAND, MAINE

:The Portland Museum of Art is presenting a freshly refurbished glass and ceramics exhibition open to the public this June. Dazzling colors, elegant forms and innovative techniques characterize the more than 300 works, which range from early European pieces to Tiffany glass to the art glass of Dale Chihuly.

This dramatic reinstallation highlights some familiar masterpieces of the museum's decorative arts collection and showcases numerous other important works, including recent additions to the collection. New interpretive text and identification labels are included within the cases for the first time.

Glass and ceramics have long been among the largest and most important collections of the Portland Museum of Art. When the Charles Shipman Payson Building was built in 1983, special exhibit cases were designed and installed in the lower ground floor for the express purpose of displaying these works. Crafted to evoke the windows of Nineteenth Century shops, these cases have been the primary public face of the decorative arts collection for more than 20 years.

During that time, the objects on display have varied only slightly, with few replacements or additions. The glass and ceramics collections, however, have continued to grow with major gifts, purchases and bequests. Perhaps the most significant addition over the past two decades was the 2002 bequest of Sylvia Greenberg, which added more than 200 beautiful and important examples of art glass to the museum's holdings.

The need to celebrate and spotlight this and other noteworthy glass and ceramics acquisitions has inspired museum staff to undertake this full reinstallation and reinterpretation of the collection. The original display cases have been transformed with new paint, fixtures and lighting and filled with hundreds of the most stunning and significant pieces in the collection.

Guest curator Arlene Palmer Schwind responded innovatively to the challenge of presenting and interpreting the museum's glass and ceramics collections. Focusing on their strengths, she chose a thematic sampling of decorative and functional objects made for consumption in the United States and Europe, from a late Sixteenth Century Venetian wineglass to Dale Chihuly's "Rose Mist Seaform," 2001.

Techniques of manufacture and ornamentation are addressed, with special attention paid to the treatments that gave art glass of the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Century its astonishing array of colors and finishes.

The remarkable range of forms made of glass and ceramics is suggested in cases devoted to drinking vessels, teawares and tablewares. Other cases explore design issues such as neoclassicism, the Venetian influence and the enduring appeal of floral and animal subjects.

The artistry and production of two glassworks are highlighted in individual cases: The Portland Glass Company, which operated in Portland between 1863 and 1873, and that of Louis Comfort Tiffany, in production on Long Island from 1893 to 1924.

The Portland Museum of Art is at Seven Congress Square. For information, 207-775-6148 or www.portlandmuseum.org.