Echo

Artist Vera Liskova (Czech, 1924 - 1985)

Date1984

DimensionsH: 30 11/16 in. (78 cm); W: 26 3/8 (67 cm); Depth: 16 9/16 in. (42 cm)

MediumSimax® borosilicate glass tubing, flame-worked (blown, tooled, applied)

ClassificationGlass

Credit LinePurchased with funds from Helen Brooks in memory of Mayme and Rudolph Luedtke

Object number

2014.17

Not on View

DescriptionEcho was made by heading colorless borosilicate glass tubes, inflating and manipulating the hot glass over a torch to create the individual spiky elements, and then fusing the elements to one another with a torch. The sculpture is comparatively light weight in relation to its size.

Label TextIn the 1960s, Věra Lišková pioneered the use of flame-worked borosilicate glass to make abstract sculpture and sculptural animals. They were made by softening, inflating, and manipulating tubes of borosilicate glass (like Pyrex) with a torch. The individual parts were then assembled by fusing. Traditionally, borosilicate glass is used for making laboratory wares for scientists, such as beakers and test tubes. For Echo, Lišková expands its material possibilities, bridging disciplines to create an imaginative sculptural manifestation of sound. This piece is a physical representation of an echo, rendered with breathtaking clarity in transparent, paper-thin glass.Published References

Masters of Czech Glass, 1945-1965, London, Dan Klein Ltd. 1983.

Kruse, Joachim (ed.), Coburg Glass Prize 1985, Coburg 1985, p. 376 f., nr. 193a, pl. p. 377.

Exhibition History

Coburg, Germany, Europäisches Museum für Modernes Glas,Second Coburg Glass Prize for Modern Glass Sculpture in Europe, 1985.

Coburg, Germany, Europäisches Museum für Modernes Glas, Feuer und Flamme. Glas und Keramik aus den Sammlungen der Familie Otto Waldrich, Feb. 8, 2013-Sept. 2, 2014.

Comparative ReferencesSee also Ricke, Helmut, “Czech Glass 1945 – 1980,” Glasrevue, Nov. 1982, S. 12, pl. 186.