AACG News
In Memoriam: Kent Ipsen
Kent Forrest Ipsen, one of Harvey Littleton's first students at the University of Wisconsin, and a pioneer in cast glass art who formerly chaired the crafts department and founded the highly respected glass program at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Arts, passed away February 19 from cancer at age 79. 
Ipsen "was internationally recognized for his sculptural works in cast glass as well as for his painterly blown-glass vessels," which private collectors as well as public institutions sought, wrote Tina Oldknow, modern glass curator at the Corning Museum of Glass. His pieces exhibited in venues from the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Brooklyn Museum to the Corning Museum of Glass and the Vatican Museum.
"As one of studio glass founder Harvey Littleton's first students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Ipsen may be considered as one of the pioneers of the American Studio Glass movement, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year," Oldknow wrote.
"Ipsen's work in blown glass debuted in the important 1970 exhibition, 'Objects USA,' with the work of other studio glass pioneers such as Marvin Lipofsky, Dale Chihuly, Fritz Dreisbach and Richard Marquis.
"His work in cast glass, a relatively new medium for artists in the late 1970s, appeared in the influential 1979 exhibition, 'New Glass: A Worldwide Survey,' the first major international survey of studio glass."
| Posted 12 Apr 09
