Fish
Artist
Tomáš Hlavička
(Czech, born 1950)
CultureCzech
Date2008
MediumLayered and fused (laminated) glass; silver and gold foil
Dimensions7 × 37 1/2 × 3 in. (17.8 × 95.3 × 7.6 cm)
Credit LineAnonymous Gift in Honor of Katya and Doug Heller
Object number2023.6
DescriptionThis is a solid glass sculpture primarily made from fused float glass and strips of metallic foil. The sculpture takes the abstracted shape of a fish. Its two ends are pointed, and the top surface is relatively flat, while the bottom surface presents a gradual curve to allow the sculpture to gently rock, if desired. The ends of the sculpture are made of transparent, ruby-colored glass, and there are small areas of transparent colorless and transparent blue glass in the head that create the mouth and eye of the fish. Two thin sections of opaque, off-white glass (possibly Vitrolite) separate the ends of the fish from the body. The straight lines visible within the sculpture indicate where different segments have been laminated (glued) together before cutting and polishing work took place. The main body is made of fused float glass that is transparent aqua in section, which contains inclusions of thin, rectangular, yellow-gold sheets of metallic foil; the arrangement of the foil sections recalls a fish’s bones, radiating diagonally from a central line down the middle, where two laminated sections meet. The transparent red and opaque white glass segments are laminated to the fused float-glass-and-foil body.
ProvenanceArtist to Habatat Detroit Fine Art (2008) purchased by Mina Levin and Ronald Schwarz (January 2012) gfted to the Chrysler Museum of Art (March 2023)Exhibition HistoryHabatat Detroit Fine Art 2012
