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Seekers® presents the work of Lundberg
Studios, an internationally renowned glass studio founded in 1970 by the
late James Lundberg, and known for its clear-encased California Style
paperweights as well as Art Nouveau and Tiffany style iridescent glass.
The Lundberg Studios are perhaps most
widely known for the World Weight, originally created in 1989 by
James Lundberg. Each of these ethereal spheres depicts the earth in
remarkable detail, showing continents, oceans and cloud formations. Made
in a variety of sizes, the World Weights range in size from 1 1/2 inches
to 6 inches in diameter. Lundberg World Weights can be found in the Oval
Office of the White House and in numerous public and private
collections, including those of the late Jacques Cousteau, ABC News
Anchorman Ted Koppel and the National Geographic Society.
The studio’s series of Indian
Basket Vessels, resembling in shape and texture the woven creations
of California’s Native Americans, feature a golden luster surface
inspired by Louis Comfort Tiffany’s "favrile glass" of the
late 19th century.
The California Style paperweights
involve a melding of two antique styles: the art nouveau "ice
pick" technique and the lampworking procedures used in making
French paperweights. Complex three-dimensional imagery is applied to the
piece before encasing that layer in clear molten crystal, then repeating
the process.
James Lundberg began working in glass
in the late 1960s, while a student at California State University, San
Jose. He and brother Steven moved their small backyard glass studio,
Nouveau Glass, from San Jose to Davenport in 1973, and renamed it
Lundberg Studios. Steven Lundberg left the studio in 1997 to establish
his own studio, Steven Lundberg Contemporary Art Glass, in Santa Cruz.
Lundberg Studios continues to be
staffed by glass artists working in the Renaissance studio tradition,
with each one contributing his or her own unique skills to the creative
process. A mainstay since the early days, Daniel Salazar creates signed
pieces for the studio, which continues under the direction of Rebecca
Lundberg.
Each piece created at Lundberg Studios
is signed with the studio name, the artist’s name, date and
registration number. Examples of the studio’s work are included in
numerous major museum and private glass collections, including the De
Young Museum, SF; Los Angeles County Art Museum; The Bergstrom-Mahler
Museum, WI; The Museum of American Glass, NJ; Scone Palace, Scotland;
The Corning Museum of Glass; The Art Institute of Chicago; and The
Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. |
