Label TextHanging Form B represents the artist’s innovative approach to incorporating unexpected materials into glass sculpture. Lipofsky’s sinuous glass shapes were created with a glassblowing technique known as “swinging out”: using a blowpipe to swing a piece of molten glass back and forth, allowing gravity to stretch and shape it into forms like cylinders or teardrops. In Hanging Form B, a long tube of glass blown with great precision coils in around itself. In response to the limitations of commercially available colored glass, Lipofsky began using other processes including copper plating and rayon flocking (the application of tiny fibers to create a soft, velvet-like texture) to modify the surface of the glass. By combining these materials and then “collaging” blown glass parts together, he was able to create novel abstract forms. In Hanging Form B, the smooth copper-plated tubing contrasts with the velvety translucent green flocking. Lipofsky believed that the use of pedestals for the display of glasswork undermined the viewer’s ability to perceive positive and negative shapes in the work The artist is representative of a transformation in glassblowing occurring in the mid- twentieth century: the movement from the conception of glass as a craft material to one that could be used to explore issues of form, color, and surface effect in the context of abstract art.
DimensionsOverall: 18 1/4 x 7 x 3 3/4 in. (46.4 x 17.8 x 9.5 cm)
Accession Number 2025.124
Classificationsglass
ProvenanceEstate of Marvin B. Lipofsky; Des Moines Art Center [gift of previous, 2025]
