November 16, 2013 – January 19, 2014
Glass artist David Huchthausen’s work throughout four decades has altered the history of contemporary glass. Deliberately enigmatic and mysterious, Huchthausen’s work – from his earliest mixed-media sculptures and fantasy and landscape vessels to his trademark integral color laminations and spheres designed to be examined from all directions – strives to tantalize and challenge viewers. While an architecture student he gravitated toward sculpture and in 1970 discovered and experimented with an abandoned glass furnace on the University of Wisconsin-Marathon County campus in Wausau. He later became Harvey Littleton’s graduate assistant at UW-Madison and went on to become a Fulbright scholar, university professor, and museum consultant. For the Woodson Art Museum, Huchthausen developed Americans in Glass exhibitions in 1978, 1981, and 1984 that documented the evolution of American studio glass from its early emphasis on blown forms and hot working to an explosion of sculptural and conceptual forms. “One of the advantages of having worked as an artist for forty-two years is that you can look back at your older work free of the emotional intensity that enveloped it at the time,” Huchthausen said. “Looking back and studying how one series morphed and mutated into the next over the years provides clearer insights into the origins and concepts at the heart of the most recent work.”
Exhibition Highlights
