r - The Metropolitan Museum of Art

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aurice Marinot (1882-1960) was
the first artist of the modern
period to master the arduous skill of
glassblowing. Originally a Fauvist
painter, who participated in the 1913
Armory Show, he became fascinated
with the molten medium in 1911 on a
visit to a glass factory owned by friends
at Bar-sur-Seine. With these facilities put
at his disposal he first worked on the
decoration of finished pieces while
apprenticing himself to the glassblowers,
or gaffers. It was not until 1922
that he felt he could exhibit glass he had
blown himself. His interpretations of the
life of the material, recording in the
finished piece its transmutation from
liquid to solid, earned him great esteem.
Within simple shapes that relate to Art
Deco, he captured galaxies of change-
able light and substance, surfaces
exploding one within the other. Upon
the closing of the Bar-sur-Seine factory
in 1937, Marinot's work in glass
ceased. It would be another 25 years,
and then in the United States, before
glassmaking would become available to
the independent artist.
Jar and bottle: 1925-29. H. 9 in., 43/4 in.
Rogers Fund, 1970.198.2,3ab
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