Pienezza
Artist: Toots Zynsky (American, born 1951)
Date: 2017
Dimensions:
18 1/2 × 29 3/4 × 13 in. (47 × 75.6 × 33 cm)
Medium: Filet de verre (colored glass threads), fused and thermoformed
Classification: Glass
Credit Line: Purchased with funds from the Florence Scott Libbey Bequest in Memory of her Father, Maurice A. Scott, by exchange
Object number: 2018.7
Label Text:Toots Zynsky explores the fragility of glass, suggesting both sculptural object and functional vessel. Her experiments with slumping (heating glass until it is soft enough to take the shape of a form or mold) and fusing (using heat to bond one or more pieces of glass together) led her to invent a new glass technique using glass filaments, which she calls filet de verre (French for “glass thread”). Initially, Zynsky laboriously pulled the thread-like fibers from glass rods by hand, though she later worked with Dutch engineer Mathijs Teunissen van Manen to devise a machine that pulls the glass threads extremely thin and with speed, regularity, and consistency.
On view