Images(4)

Innerland

Object NameSculpture

Artist Eric Hilton (British, b. Scotland 1937)

Assistant Ladislav Havlik (Czech, 1925 - 2021)

Assistant Lubomir Richter (b. Czechoslovakia, 1936)

Assistant Roger Selander (American, b. 1945)

Cutter Mark Witter

Engraver Peter Schelling (b. 1933)

Factory Steuben Glass, Inc. (1903-)

Made FromLead Glass

Date1980

TechniqueCast, ground, polished, sandblasted, cut, engraved, assembled

SizeOverall H: 9.9 cm, W: 49.3 cm, D: 49.3 cm

Accession Number86.4.180

Credit LineAnonymous gift

Curatorial Area(s)

Postwar and Contemporary

Exhibitions

The Cutting Edge: 200 Years of the Crystal Object

Interpretive Notes

Web Text

"Art is one of the foundations of the life experience. It echoes through all human history. We decipher it like a code to communicate with our ancestral memory."–Eric Hilton This sculpture is based on the dramatic landscapes of Hilton’s native Scotland, with their sweeping vistas of ocean and treeless moors. Innerland refers to how Hilton feels when he visits his traditional crofter’s stone cottage in remote northwestern Scotland. But the sculpture is also a metaphor for the inner landscape of the mind. Hilton populates this landscape of the mind—the landscape of memory and imagination—with complex forms and lines that appear and disappear within the sculpture’s many glass cubes. Innerland was made with Mark Witter, who assisted with the cutting, and it was engraved by Ladislav Havlik, Lubomir Richter, Peter Schelling, and Roger Selander.

Place Made

United States, NY, Corning

Physical DescriptionSculpture, "Innerland". Colorless lead glass; cast, cut, engraved, sandblasted, polished. Square; thirty-eight cut pieces which, when assembled, form 25 cubes placed together in a thick, flat, square; engraved and sandblasted imagery projects into glass from the underside and sides of components except for one large engraved lens which rests on surface (4B). Design consists of an imaginary landscape radiating from (3C), the center, five-part cube consisting of a free central squared column containing a small "cell" air trap and four beveled free sides with engraved imagery of a fortress walls. The fortress walls extend into the four adjacent cubes (4C, 3B, 3D, and 2C). Cubes (3D and 3E) join together to create the main path to the fortress intersected by two gates and a small free diamond-shaped prism (3D/E) sitting between both blocks, path flanked by low mountains. The remaining space can roughly be divided into four quadrants (moving clockwise from the back left corner):
The first quadrant consists of (1A, 2A, 1B, and 2B), which form bursting concentric circles of energy and intertwined tree roots surrounding a faceted, pyramidal mountain; the roots/energy lines develop into a tree in (5C) and wind down into (3A).
The second quadrant consists of (4A) block divided horizontally into two parts with large split center air trap, (5A) mountain with central air trap, (5Bab) two-part block with center free cylindrical column, and (4B) honeycomb of small polished "eye" lenses, which expand to fill nearly all of (4C) and some of (5C).
The third quadrant consists of (4D, 5D, 4E, and 5E) four blocks surrounding free four-sided columnar prism with central small air trap (4D/E), each block has concentric rings of energy/roots leading from a "tree of life".
The fourth quadrant consists of (1D) vortex/mountain surrounding small air trap, (1Ea) a cube with cloud formation on two sides and concentric ring/roots and also contains a cylindrical free column (1Eb), (2Db) a free, thin, flat lens which sits on top of (2Da) cube and is engraved with abstracted image of flying bird, and (5E), a cube with engraved flowers and abstract vegetal tendrils.
Provenance

Provenance Remark

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