Galleries take a shine to glass art: gallery owners discover that adding contemporary glass art to their inventory increases sales and pulls in new clients

Art Business News, Nov, 2001 by Jennifer Wong

Contemporary glass art, for both experienced glass art dealers and gallery owners who have recently added it to their offerings, is proving to be a lucrative product. Galleries new to contemporary glass art are discovering its mass appeal, while gallery owners familiar to the magic of glass art say it has a stunning beauty that continually attracts buyers like a magnet.

"Glass art sells itself," said Leanne Ng, assistant director of Vetri International Glass in Seattle. The gallery shows glass exclusively and has enjoyed very successful sales from the time it opened. "I hear a lot of people say they don't usually walk into art galleries but they get drawn in by the glass," she said. "People immediately fall in love with something and they want to take it home."

"Glass grabs you," agreed Todd Sunderland, vice president of operations for Collectors Fine Art, a company with five galleries in the U.S. that does millions of dollars in sales of glass art in addition to other media. He said the success of the medium may be due to the fact that a buyer doesn't need to have a strong background in art to enjoy it. "You walk in, and you understand it--it's beautiful, it's colorful, it's very emotional," he said.

Bill Lowe, director of the Lowe Gallery in Atlanta, recently began representing Dale Chihuly and is preparing for Chihuly's largest commercial show ever in the Southeast set to begin in January 2002. The gallery is already receiving a strong response to his work, and Lowe believes it is because the South responds "to overt beauty."

"Our contemporary society has become anaesthetized to beauty to a point that we are caught off guard when something gorgeous hits us in the gut," said Lowe. When looking at Chihuly's work, Lowe insisted that, "you don't question whether you understand it properly because you are absolutely assured that you get its beauty."

"It's wonderful to have your intellectual armor disassembled without your permission and feel like you've been had in a good way," continued Lowe.

The Demographics of Appeal

Contemporary glass art's appeal to so many people is a little unusual in the art world considering that it is a relatively new art form. Some dealers suggest glass art is less intimidating as art because it is a medium so familiar in its utilitarian purposes.

Glass itself has been around for thousands of years and has been used for many reasons--gifts for kings and emperors, beaded for jewelry prized like precious gems and used to make vessels, exquisite stained glass windows and mirrors. Throughout Europe, from the 13th to the 16th centuries, glass became increasingly popular as a practical medium used to make glass lenses, microscopes and tableware. Today, glass is ubiquitous in our everyday use from drinking glasses to car windshields. However, it is only in the last 25 years or so that artists have chosen glass as a medium to explore their sculptural ideas, producing art with content and a message.

"Glass will never go back to being used just for the utilitarian," said William Traver, owner and director of the William Traver Gallery, a fine art gallery that shows all media, and Vetri International Glass in Seattle. "Now, it will always be looked at seriously as a medium that artists can use in their exploration of their ideas."

Friedrich Ehrmann, director of Compositions Gallery in San Francisco, said it is the American buying public that also contributes to fine glass art's popularity. "Americans take much faster to new ideas and are more decisive in their approach to art versus the Europeans who are more traditional," said Ehrmann. His gallery is devoted entirely to fine glass art and has enjoyed increasing sales over the past two decades, with last year's sales being the best ever, he said. His clients come from all over the country and sometimes Europe, Southeast Asia and the Far East.

A Unique Clientele

Gallery owners who add glass to their repertoire are finding that it attracts new clients to their galleries. "Glass is bringing people into the gallery, and it gives us the opportunity to sell them a painting as well," said Joel Cohen, co-owner of Soho Arts South in Palm Beach, Fla. His fine art gallery has only recently begun to show glass, and he has been surprised and happy about its success, considering the economy and the current state of U.S. domestic affairs.

Sunderland of Collectors Fine Art said when people walk into his company's galleries, they want to see the glass first, and they may become interested in additional art afterward. It is his feeling that if they didn't display glass art, these new clients may never have come in the first place.

One of the reasons glass attracts additional new gallery clients is because they may simply have run out of wall space. "When it comes to glass," said Cohen, "you've always got room for it, it could be on a shelf, a coffee or dining table, placed on a pedestal or displayed in a cabinet." Indeed, many homes today are being built with larger windows to create more open space.