Toots Zynsky
Acquamare Chaos

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Artist Toots Zynsky (American, born 1951)American, born 1951

CultureAmerican

Titles

Acquamare Chaos

Date1997

PlaceUnited States

MediumGlass

Dimensions11 × 21 1/2 × 12 1/2 in. (27.9 × 54.6 × 31.8 cm)

Credit LineMuseum purchase funded by the Museum Collectors

Object number98.222

Current Location

The Nancy and Rich Kinder Building

Gallery 206

On view

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Department

Decorative Arts, Craft, and Design

Object Type

GLASS

DescriptionToots Zynsky’s glass vessels are influenced by her extensive travels to South Africa, the Far East, and South America, in them she uses vivid colors and textures that reflect the indigenous birds and textiles observed on her journeys. Zynsky achieves her extraordinary forms through a technique that is her own. Glass threads are pulled from Murano glass rods by a special machine created for her by Dutch engineer Mathijs Teunissen van Manen. The colored threads are layered on top of one another and fused with heat. Zynsky then manipulates the fused threads in a mold or stainless steel bowl to create her forms. Shapes are organic and emphasize depth and movement through the layering of both translucent and opaque colors.

Provenance[Barry Friedman, Ltd., New York]; purchased by MFAH, 1998.
Exhibition History"Contemporary Craft from the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston," Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, May 27–August 13, 2001.

"Murano: Glass from the Olnick Spanu Collection," Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, June 6–August 1, 2004.

"Patrons' Choice: The Silver Anniversary of The Museum Collectors, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston," Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, September 18, 2004–January 30, 2005.

"Hot Glass: Cool Collections," Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, December 13, 2008–March 15, 2009.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks

The vase is not signed.

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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