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Is, Was: Glass and Metal by Christopher Wilmarth
On View
October 2, 2026 — April 18, 2027
Location
Glass Projects Space
In 1967, a pioneering young sculptor, Christopher Wilmarth (American, 1943–87), introduced glass into his artistic practice. Using industrially produced plate glass, Wilmarth discovered that he could influence the material using acid washes and, in this way, explore emotional “epiphanies” through the mystical and physical properties of light. The artist’s early work involving glass included Drawings, artworks on an intimate scale made of glass pieces and wire, and displayed on the wall.
By the mid-1970s, Wilmarth was combining plate glass with large sheets of steel to produce freestanding abstract sculptures. Now in 2026, 50 years after the completion of Wilmarth’s glass and metal sculpture Is, Was (Deep), the Chrysler Museum invites visitors to revisit this iconic work in its collection. The artist’s use of heavy industrial materials is balanced by the poetic contrasts of their material nature, and by the ethereal effects of light and shadow.
In Wilmarth’s later artistic explorations with glass, he departed from the pure geometry of flat glass. While in California at an artist’s residency, he worked with students in the glass studio of Marvin Lipofsky at the California College of Arts and Crafts, and incorporated rounded, three-dimensional blown forms into small wall sculptures. In Wilmarth’s resulting Breath series, ovals of colorless glass emerge from metal components to capture “a spiritual disembodied state.” To this day, Wilmarth’s body of work combining glass with metal remains unique to the field of sculpture.
This exhibition is curated by Carolyn Needell, PhD, and organized by the Chrysler Museum of Art.
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