THERMAN STATOM

Born: Winter Park, Florida 1953

Resides: California

Therman Statom is a sculptor, glass artist, and painter but is probably best known for his life-size glass ladders, chairs, tables, miniature houses, and box-like paintings, all created through the extraordinary technique of gluing window glass together. He paints portions of these sculptures in vibrant colors with an absolute air of spontaneity and often attaches found objects to them. Sometimes he fashions his own blown or cast glass objects for inclusion with these sculptures.

Statom, however, thrives on the creation of daring, often playful, site-specific installations, having produced over a dozen for museums and galleries across the United States since 1980. These temporal works have been constructed in such cities as Cincinnati, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, Toledo, and Washington, D.C. His installation Hydra (1996) at the Toledo Museum of Art incorporated works from that museum's collection that included paintings by Van Gogh and Cézanne and the enormous cut glass punch bowl that Libbey made for the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair. Statom has also executed commissions for large-scale permanent works at the Los Angeles Central Public Library and at the Los Angeles County Metro Rail, Westlake/MacArthur Park Station in 1993.

Therman Statom's fascination with art began through his childhood friendship with his Washington, D.C. neighbor, Cady Noland, whose father Kenneth was then creating his famed target paintings. Young Therman told Kenneth Noland that he could paint like that too, and made his own version. From Noland, Statom realized that he didn't have to be a doctor, like his father, to make a living. Statom went on to study glass blowing at Pilchuck in 1972 and obtained degrees from the Rhode Island School of Design (BFA-1974) and the Pratt Institute of Art & Design (MFA-1978). His work is keenly informed by a broad knowledge of art history. His site-specific installations have grown progressively richer. Critic Matthew Kangas has called Therman Statom “one of the most significant and prolific American experimental glass artists,” and has stated that his “temporary installations using glass comprise a highly important (if subsequently destroyed) body of work.”

- Bio from the “Art of Glass” exhibition; Norfolk, Virginia, 1999

EDUCATION

  • 1978 M.F.A. Sculpture, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York
  • 1974 B.F.A. Sculpture, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI
  • 1971 Pilchuck Glass School, Stanwood, Washington

SELECTED PUBLIC AND PRIVATE COLLECTIONS

  • Bergstrom Mahler Museum, Neehah, Wisconsin
  • Carnegie Museum of Art, Oxnard, California
  • California African-American Museum, Los Angeles, California
  • Cincinnati Art Museum
  • City of Seattle, Seattle, Washington
  • Corning Inc., Corning, New York
  • Craft and Folk Art Museum, Los Angeles, California
  • The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, Michigan
  • George and Dorothy Saxe, San Francisco, California
  • University of Washington, The Henry Art Gallery, Washington
  • High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia
  • Jepson Center for the Arts, Savannah, Georgia
  • Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California
  • Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami, Florida
  • M H deYoung Museum, San Francisco, California
  • Maxine and William Block Collection
  • Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota
  • Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
  • Mint Museum of Craft and Design, Charlotte, North Carolina
  • Musse des Arts Decoratifs, Palais du Louvre, Paris, FRANCE
  • Musee de Design et D'Arts Appliques /Contemporain, Lausanne, SWITZERLAND
  • National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Center, Columbus, Ohio
  • Phillip Morris Company, New York, New York
  • Palm Springs Desert Museum, Palm Springs, California
  • Racine Art Museum, Racine, Wisconsin
  • Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian's American Art Museum, Washington D.C.
  • Scottsdale Fine Arts Collection, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, AZ Simon and Jerome Chazen Collection
  • Skirball Museum of Fine Art, Los Angeles, California
  • The David Jacob Chadorkoff Collection
  • Toledo Museum of Art, School of Art and Design, Toledo, Ohio
  • US Department of State, Art in Embassies Program, Moscow RUSSIA, Maputo MOZAMBIQUE
  • US Department of State, Friends of Art & Preservation in Embassies, Sydney, AUSTRALIA
  • Washington D.C. Convention Center Authority Art Collection

SELECTED AWARDS

  • UrbanGlass Award - Outstanding Achievement
  • 2006 James Renwick Alliance - Distinguished Artist Award, Washington DC
  • San Diego Commission on the Arts Art in Public Places
  • Cultural Enrichment Proclamation, City of Beverly Hills; California Fellow
  • American Craft Council Award; Cultural Affairs Individual Artists Grant
  • City of Los Angeles; Art In Embassies Program
  • National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship
  • 1985 Brody Arts Foundation Fellowship
  • 1982 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship
  • 1978 Pratt Institute