Vitrana

Expand

IIIFView PDF

Vitrana

Artist Dominick Labino (American, 1910-1987)

Date1969

Dimensions88 3/8 × 104 in. (224.5 × 264.2 cm)

Mediumcast polychrome glass

ClassificationGlass

Credit LineGift of Mr. and Mrs. Dominick Labino

Object number

1970.449

Not on View

DescriptionMural composed of 33 glass panels supported by a steel framework.

Label TextComposed of 33 cast panels and weighing approximately 1,000 pounds, Dominick Labino’s glass mural was designed and executed especially for the Toledo Museum of Art in 1969. In 1965 Labino retired as Vice-President and Director of Research at Toledo’s Johns-Mansville Fiber Glass, Inc. to pursue a second career as a studio glass artist. He contributed his valuable technical know-how to the 1962 Toledo Workshops (see Gallery 5), which spurred interest in glass as an artistic medium, helping to introduce and de-mystify this difficult material to many artists. Labino brought his expertise as an engineer to his glass art, using chemistry to experiment with color. To make Vitrana, Labino cast molten glass into rectangular molds, inlaying different colors of glass free hand during the casting process to achieve the unique effects of each panel. The name Vitrana was chosen to combine the base of the Latin word for glass (vitrum) with a suffix meant to suggest the flow of molten glass and the colors suspended within it.Published ReferencesThe Toledo Museum of Art, Art in Glass, 1969, color ill., p. 4.

Gunther, Charles F., "How Glass is Made," Toledo Museum of Art Museum News, 1972, New Series: Vol. 15, no. 1, repr. (col.) p. 13.

The Blade Sunday Magazine, April 26, 1970, p. 2, repr. on cover.

"About the cover...," Toledo Club News, Oct. 1972, p. 1, repr. (col.) on cover.

Glass Collections in Museums in the United States and Canada, Corning, 1982, repr. p. 169.

Reed, Harry, " Dominick Labino," American Art Glass Quarterly, Fall, 1983, p. 64, 65, repr. (det., col.), p. 61.

Hollister, Paul, "Remembering Labino," New Work, no. 29, Spring 1987, repr. p. 9.

Fairbanks, Jonathan L., Glass today by American studio artists, Boston, 1997, p. 12.

McMaster, Julie A., The Enduring Legacy: A Pictorial History of the Toledo Museum of Art, Superior Printing, Warren, OH, 2001, p. 38.

Ducan, Sally Anne, Otto Wittmann: Museum Man for All Seasons, Toledo, 2001, p. 29.

Page, Jutta-Annette, The Art of Glass: Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio, Toledo Museum of Art, 2006, p. 10, cover, frontispiece, repr. (col.).

Page, Jutta-Annette, "News: the Glass Pavilion of the Toledo Museum of Art," New Glass Review 28, 2007, p. 102.

Putney, Richard H. and Paula Reich, Glass in Glass: Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, 2007, p. 24, repr. (col.) p. 29, (det.) p. 28.

Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo Museum of Art Masterworks, Toledo, 2009, p. 343, repr. (col.).

Page, Jutta-Annette, Peter Morrin, and Robert Bell, Color Ignited: Glass 1962-2012, Toledo, OH, 2012, p. 28, repr (col.) p. 29, pl. 9.

Exhibition HistorySt. Helens, England, Pilkington Glass Museums; London, Victoria & Albert Museum; Toledo, Toledo Museum of Art; et. al, Dominick Labino: A Decade of Glass Craftsmanship 1964-1974, 1974-1975, repr. p. 4 [not paginated].

Toledo, Toledo Museum of Art; Columbus, Riffe Gallery; San Francisco, San Francisco Airport Museums, The Alliance of Art and Industry: Toledo Designs for a Modern America, 2002, p. 21, pl. 13, p. 20 (col.) and p. 10 (det. col.).