(New York/Massachusetts, born 1943)

Split Red with Blue (TP 186), 1990, unsigned for aesthetic reasons, laminated, fused, blown, and hand polished glass, 5-1/2 x 4-3/4 x 3 in.

Note: This object is one of only four in the series. One is in the permanent collection of the Corning Museum of Glass, one is in the permanent collection of the de Young Museum in San Francisco and one in an important private art collection.

Trained as an industrial designer in the 1960s, Patti began experimenting with salvaged industrial sheet glass as an economy measure: stacking it in layers, fusing the sheets together, and blowing air pockets into the solid mass to create a form. A desired effect of this fusing and laminating technique was that the finished work retained a clear and intended visual reference to the method by which it was made. It is the artist?s ability to adapt processes usually associated with industry to the creation of non utilitarian works of fine art that sets him apart from both production-line glass designers and craftsmen or studio artists. His small scale sculptures, usually done in series, become sensuous forms, miniature architecture, or studies in geometry. Honored in 2012 as a Pratt Icon, and chosen by Corning Inc. for a Specialty Glass Residency in 2015-16, Tom?s work has been exhibited throughout the world, and is included in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, the Chicago Art Institute, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Louvre in Paris and numerous others.

Exhibited: L'ATELIER, France, 1991, cover, p. 14 & 19.

Provenance: Acquired by the current collection in 1990. Holsten Galleries, Palm Beach, Florida ; Private Collection, New York

good condition