Like many stained-glass aritsts, Lithuanian-American Albinas Elskus (1926 – 2007) designed for studios that primarily produced liturgical windows such as Karl Hachert Studio in Chicago and Durham Studios in New York. Yet examples of his work during this period can also be found the National Arts Club in New York, and private homes throughout the Northeast. When he went on to work freelance, Elskus branched out into different techniques and attracted a wider range of commissions for private collections. He designed the Civil Rights Memorial Window (1991) for Cornell University’s Sage Chapel and a window for the Playboy Club in Cincinnatti in 1975.
Elskus was a trained painter, and an ambitious artist who lectured at Glass Art Society meetings, spoke at RISD, and was an artist-in-residence at the New York Experimental Glass Workshop (1983) and Pilchuck (1987).
This new 224-page book chronicles his life and work. Published in 2009 by a national museum in his home country of Lithuania, it includes text in both Lithuanian and English, High-quality color plates capture Elskus’s outstanding abilities as a colorist and painter, equally comfortable in figurative or abstract motiffs. Of special note are his works painting on glass, a technique he experimented with during repeated visits to Pilchuck.
Copies of the book are available via email at kulturostaryba@gmail.com