One-fifth of works at upcoming Museum of Glass fundraising auction carry $20,000-plus estimates

The cover of the Red Hot auction catalog for the Museum of Glass fundraiser.

The catalog for the upcoming Museum of Glass annual fundraiser, the “Red Hot 2011 Summer Party + Auction,” is notable in the number of works with estimates that top the $20,000 mark. The event that will take place on Saturday, July 30, 2011, from 5 to 10:30 in the evening, will feature 40 lots. A full eight of them feature work with substantial price-tags, with a 2009 work by Lino Tagliapietra entitled Vienna and measuring 22 1/4 inches topping out at $45,000. See the full auction catalog here.

Lino Tagliapietra, Vienna, 2009.

Lino’s richly patterned and textured work is followed in estimate value by Dale Chihuly’s Kinema Red Macchia with Royal Blue Lip Wrap (2010) weighing in at $35,000. The impressive roster of visiting artists to the museum’s hot shop is evident in the generous donations of prominent metal sculptor and 2010 MoG visiting artist Albert Paley, whose 2001 Crimson Wrap is a celebration of parallels between the behavior of hot glass and metal.

Alessandro Diaz de Santillana, Earth 00, 2010. Slumped blown glass, silver gilded frame. H 19 3/4, W 38 1/4, D 3 1/2 in.

Also offering work with impressive valuations are the Alessandro Diaz and Laura de Stantillana, the grandson and granddaughter of noted Venetian glass design legend Paolo Venini, and each a full-fledged sculptor in his and her own right. Allessandro’s vivid glass painting Earth 00 (2010) is based on forms from Hindu theology and carries an estimate of $28,000. His sister Laura’s work, Space Egg (2010) continues her series of celestial objects, abstract shapes that seem to have arrived from another universe. Her luminous white oblong form also includes references to symbols from Hindu mythology.

Daniel Clayman, Small Flask Two, 2008. Mold-cast glass and copper. H 17 1/4, W 16, D x 9 in.

Fellow Venetian Davide Salvadore also donated work in the over-$20,000 category. His 25-inch tall stringed glass instrument called Piccolo Tiraboson (2010) is listed at $28,000. A sharp contrast to the exuberant coloration of Salvadore is Daniel Clayman’s powerfully spare Small Flask Two (2008), a mold-cast glass and copper work that advances the artist’s formal vocabulary that renders volumes of light in three dimensions.

A set of Native American-inspired woven baskets rendered in glass close out the $20,000 club, with Preston Singletary’s Tlingit Baskets set. With an estimate price of $25,000, the three blown and sandblasted glass baskets, the largest measuring 9 inches in height and diameter, further his unique ability to translate the texture of natural materials into glass to ethereal effect.

Preston Singletary, Tlingit Baskets, 2009 – 2011. Blown and sandblasted glass. H 9, D 9 (Tallest).

This Red Hot fundraiser will see the introduction of a special $200-a-piece hand-blown goblet designed especially for the event by Benjamin Cobb and made by members of the Museum of Glass hotshop team. The hot-sculpted goblets feature a wide, round bowl set atop a delicate stem adorned with a topaz globe.

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