Artist of the Month
January 2025
Toots Zynsky
Toots Zynsky’s distinctive style incorporates her unique technical approach entitled Filet de Verre, wherein sculptural vessel forms are created from thousands of hair-thin extruded Italian glass cane filaments fused together and hand shaped while still hot in her kiln. Zynsky is represented by Heller Gallery, which is having an exhibition of her work opening January 22 in New York City.
Click each photo for a full picture.
Cardinalis Cardinalis, 2024; 18-1/2 x 29-3/4 x 13 inches; filet de verre (glass thread) fusing technique
City Lights, 1993; 6-3/4 x 13 x 9 inches; filet de verre (glass thread) fusing technique
Flash Fire, 1987; 4-3/4 x 9 x 9 inches; filet de verre (glass thread) fusing technique
Old Egypt, 1992; 6-1/2 x 11-1/4 x 11-1/2 inches; filet de verre (glass thread) fusing technique
Roseate Tern, 2024; 9-1/4 x 23-3/4 x 7-1/2 inches; filet de verre (glass thread) fusing technique
Untitled from the African Dream Series, 1987; 6-1/2 x 13-1/4 x 9-1/4 inches; filet de verre (glass thread) fusing technique
Toots Zynsky
About Toots Zynsky
Toots Zynsky: A Chorographer of Lines & Color
Born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1951 and currently working in Providence RI, Toots Zynsky has earned international recognition for using her filet de verre (glass thread) fusing technique to create undulating hand-sculpted vessel forms that, in the words of former Corning Museum of Glass curator and art historian Tina Oldknow, “inhabit a region all their own, interweaving the traditions of painting, sculpture, and the decorative arts.” Toots Zynsky is one the most revered figures among the pantheon of artists using glass whose long careers have already demonstrated that their work stands the test of time.
An early student in Dale Chihuly’s groundbreaking glass program at the Rhode Island School of Design, Toots Zynsky received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree there in 1973. In the ensuing five decades, art critics and curators have been consistently lauding her filet de verre glassworks, calling them “uncompromisingly beautiful, captivating, luminous, spiritually nourishing, defying categorization and a formal exploration in color and composition that has no end.” It should surprise no one that her works currently reside in 106 international museums and public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Cooper-Hewitt in New York City; the Musée des Arts Décoratifs du Louvre in Paris, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and Australia’s National Gallery of Victoria. She is also the recipient of numerous prestigious honors and awards. including the 2015 Smithsonian Visionary Award, the Women’s Center of Rhode Island Annual Women of Excellence Award in 2013 and the Rhode Island Pell Award for Excellence in the Arts in 2006.
Most recently Cara McCarty, Curator Emerita, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, and former curator at MoMA called Zynsky a “Choreographer of Lines and Color.” She describes an early neon-green bowl form of Zynskys’ as “a chromatic magnet. Seen up close, it was an energetic universe of movement. The meticulous layering of glass threads, slender modules of lines heated, fused and shaped by hand, resembled a sculpted drawing.”
You can meet and learn more about Toots Zynsky watching this video. To request information regarding her upcoming Heller Gallery exhibition Past/Present, opening on January 22nd at The Curator Lab, 529 West 20th Street, NYC, please reach out to info@hellergallery.com.
Click here for an artist's resume.
Acknowledgment of Gallery:
We are grateful to Heller Gallery, New York, NY, for providing the Artist of the Month.
The Art Alliance for Contemporary Glass is a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to further the development and appreciation of art made from glass.
The Alliance informs collectors, critics and curators by encouraging and supporting museum exhibitions, university glass departments and specialized teaching programs, regional collector groups, visits to private collections, and public seminars.
