Chameleon Effects: Glass (Un)Defined

While some museums are closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Apollo’s usual weekly pick of exhibitions will include shows at institutions that are currently open as well as digital projects providing virtual access to art and culture.

People have been making glass for some 4,000–6,000 years. As one of the oldest human-made substances, over the course of the millennia it has been blown into more than a few shapes and sizes. At the Toledo Museum of Art, which boasts one of the most significant collections of glass art worldwide (in Toledo, it was once proclaimed, ‘glass is king’), this survey of 30 pieces encompasses 17th-century bowls, 19th-century jewellery and recent acquisitions by contemporary glass artists such as Sharyn O’Mara. The show, which opens on 27 March, takes its name from an art deco tray with a glass chameleon, designed by Henri Marie Joseph Bergé. Find out more from the TMA’s website.

Preview below | View Apollo’s Art Diary here 

Footed glass bowl resembling lapis lazuli (c. 1640–60), France. Toledo Museum of Art

Model of the Koh-i-Noor Diamond and two other diamonds (1851), Apsley Pellatt IV, Falcon Glassworks. Toledo Museum of Art

Chandelier for the End of Time (2018), Sharyn O’Mara. Toledo Museum of Art