From East to West

Object NameSculptural Vessel

Artist Hiroshi Yamano (Japanese, b. 1956)

Studio Funigawa Glass Studio

Studio Tokyo Glass Art Institute

Made FromLead glass, Silver, Copper, Bronze

Date1991

Place MadeJapan, Tokyo

TechniqueBlown, fused, electroplated

SizeOverall H: 72.4 cm; Base Diam: 16 cm

Accession Number91.6.12

Credit Line6th Rakow Commission, purchased with funds from the Juliette K. and Leonard S. Rakow Endowment Fund

Curatorial Area(s)

Postwar and Contemporary

Not On View

Interpretive Notes

Web Text

Hiroshi Yamano started his "From East to West" series in the late 1980s, while he was a graduate student at the Rochester Institute of Technology. The symbolic decoration of fish, water, and mountains refers to his dual life as a resident of the United States and Japan. This Rakow Commission reflects the increasing interest in contemporary glass in Japan. While studio glass developed later in Japan than in the United States and Europe, there are many influential Japanese artists working in glass today.

Physical DescriptionColorless and black 8% lead glasses, metallic silver and bronze, aquamarine; blown black glass, marvered with silver-leaf, engraved with dental tools after annealing, copper electroplating, patinated, pâte de verre base, sandblasted, assembled with UV adhesive (bronze fish to cone, to patty, to body, base to body), cast bronze fish. Tall elongated hollow shape with tapered closed rounded top, topped with colorless matte patty and small solid cone (almost completely covered in silver-leaf) tipped with a solid bronze fish with aquamarine patination; overall decoration on body of fused silver-leaf stylized linear fish (with teeth) with engraved details swimming mainly in one direction between jagged mountains, copper electroplated background, "back side" has broad areas of un-electroplated silver (with aqua coloration showing through silver) at base and smaller sections at middle and top; body rests on solid matte colorless circular base pad with pattern of circular indentations and four short solid matte feet; no pontil; inscribed in script near base edge: "91 Yamano Hiroshi".
Provenance

Source Hiroshi Yamano (Japanese, b. 1956) - 1991