Vase

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Vase

Artist Frances Stewart Higgins (American, 1912-2004)

Dateabout 1958-1959

DimensionsH: 24.1 cm (9 1/2 in.); Diam. (rim): 17.2 cm (6 3/4 in.)

MediumColorless crushed glass, sheet glass, fused, enamel

ClassificationGlass

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

1991.88

Not on View

Label TextThe husband-and-wife team of Michael (1908–1999) and Frances Higgins were known for their glass enamel tableware in which they welcomed “controlled accidents” during the forming of the object. During the later 1950s Frances produced sensitive and innovative vessels like this one with granules of fused colorless glass that mimicked fractured ice. By leaving the top edge of this simple, tapered vessel irregular and the upper half of the vase intermittently punctured, she heightened the visual effect of granulated ice in the process of melting.Published ReferencesPage, Jutta-Annette, The Art of Glass: Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio, Toledo Museum of Art, 2006, p. 193, repr. (col.) p. 192, (det.) p. 187.Exhibition HistoryNew York, Fifty/50, Fused Glass: The Artisanry of Frances and Michael Higgins, 1985-1986 [ill. p. 3].

Minneapolis Institute of Arts; Saint Louis Art Museum; Toledo Museum of Art; Kansas City, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art; Pittsburgh, Carnegie Museum of Art; Made in America: Ten Centuries of American Art, 1995-1996, p. 175, repr. (col.).

Comparative ReferencesSee also Hollister, Paul, "USA - Studio Glass before 1962: Maurice Heaton, Frances and Michael Higgins, Edris Eckhardt, Four Pioneers and True Originals," Neues Glas, 4/85, pp. 235-236. Cf. "Glass Focus Interviews with Frances Higgins," Glass Focus, October/November 1989, pp. 7-10. Cf. Frantz, Susanne K., Contemporary Glass, New York 1989, p. 39.