Before the Studio Glass Movement
Jean Sala (French, born Spain, 1895–1976), Bowl. Glass, blown, with overlaid decoration, about 1920. Study Gallery
Accounts of the origins and development of studio glass are as varied as the countries in which it thrives today, but often French Fauve painter Maurice Marinot (1882–1960) is singled out as the forefather of European studio glass. He produced sculptural blown-glass vessels painted with colorful enamels or decorated with deeply acid-etched surfaces. Marinot often shares this recognition with his contemporary Jean Sala, a Spanish-born glass craftsman with a small workshop in Paris, which he operated alone from 1925 until 1950. Sala is best known for colorful translucent vessels made of a bubbly glass called malfin (unrefined) with applied and contrasting decorations. Though remarkable for their independent endeavors working with glass directly, these early French practitioners and innovators remained exceptions.
In America in the mid-20th century, a group now called the proto-studio glass artists began experimenting with glassworking on a small scale, generally working alone. They were resourceful in applying limited technical information, since most glassworking at this time was confined to large factories. As a result, the newly independent glass artists borrowed some of their glass methodologies from clay-forming.