Vintage studio art glass bud vase features streamlined oval form with flared rim, decorated with abstract free-flowing pattern of silver colored glass on semi-transparent dark blue background. The juxtaposition of dark, jewel toned glass with bright metallic pattern color suggests Art Deco style influence on otherwise Modernist composition.
The vase is signed and dated by the artist on the bottom around the pontil mark.
Robert "Rob" Levin (b. 1948) is an established American glass artist. He studied ceramics and sculpture as an undergraduate at Denison University in Ohio, earning his BFA in 1971 and his MFA in glass from Southern Illinois University in 1974. At Penland School of Craft Levin studied glassblowing with Bill Boysen and Audrey Handler, both students of Harvey Littleton’s at Wisconsin; he was introduced to Fritz Dreisbach, who needed an assistant for that summer at Pilchuck Glass School, Stanwood, WA. Levin worked as Dreisbach assistant in Pilchuck in summer of 1974, through the school year at Ohio University in Athens, where Dreisbach was teaching at the time, and then came back to Pilchuck for the summer of 1975. Levin returned to Penland to teach and work as an artist-in-residence from 1976 to 1980. His close ties to Pilchuck and Penland art community place Levin in the middle of early American studio glass movement. Levin described his glass residency at Penland in one of his interviews as "a part of a heritage or a lineage that was started by Mark Peiser, who was the first Penland resident, and then ... Bill Bernstein was the Penland resident, and then George Thiewes ... then Fritz Dreisbach, and then Richard Ritter. Anyway, then I followed Richard Ritter into the glass residency. So, I was aware of a kind of a lineage that way too."
Levin stayed in the Penland region, living and working near Burnsville, North Carolina; he has lectured, taught, and led workshops throughout the US, in Ireland, and in New Zealand. He has exhibited widely in the USA and worldwide, and his work is in numerous public and private collections, including the Corning Museum of Glass, the Museum of American Glass, the High Museum in Atlanta, the Contemporary Glass Museum in Madrid, the Ebeltoft Glasmuseum in Denmark, and the Museum of Arts and Design in New York.
The elegant, sculptural form, high quality craftsmanship, and tasteful, reserved color palette will make the vase a great gift to a collector or a design enthusiast and a perfect addition to a wide range of interiors, from Traditional to Post Modern, Neo Deco, Modern Heritage, Eclectic, Organic Modern, Scandinavian Modern, Arts and Crafts, Transitional, Modern Country, Art Deco, Collected, or Contemporary.