Summer Day (Self-Portrait)
Artist
Edris Eckhardt
(American, 1905-1998)
CultureAmerican
Date1967
MediumCire perdue glass
Dimensions8 7/8 × 4 1/4 × 5 in. (22.5 × 10.8 × 12.7 cm)
Credit LineMuseum purchase with funds provided by Paramount Industrial Companies, Inc. and Arthur and Renée Diamonstein
Object number94.6
Collections
On View
Chrysler Museum of Art, Gallery 119, Case 69
Label TextEdris Eckhardt American, 1905–98 Summer Day (Self-Portrait), 1967 Lost-wax (cire perdue) cast glass Museum purchase with funds provided by Paramount Industrial Companies, Inc. and Arthur and Renée Diamonstein 94.6 Edris Eckhardt created pioneering works of art in both glass and ceramics. As a student at the Cleveland Institute of Art in the 1930s, she worked primarily with ceramics. She became involved with the Federal Art Project, working during the Great Depression to create ceramic tiles for public housing projects in the Cleveland area and figurines of popular literary figures for libraries. Eckhardt began experimenting with glass in 1952. She began melting her own glass colors in her home and testing the compatibility of them with each other. Her most groundbreaking work combined glass with other materials, such as bronze, an extremely difficult process to master. By the end of the 1950s, she had also learned how to cast glass in lost-wax molds, with Summer Day (Self-Portrait) characteristic of her figurative glass sculptures. Exhibition History"Studio Glass from the Permanent Collection," The Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, Va., June 16 - November 13, 1994. "Out of the Mold - The Creative Possibilities of Kiln-Cast Glass," Peninsula Fine Arts Center, Newport News, Va., April 2 - June 12, 2005. "Women of the Chrysler: a 400-Year Celebration of the Arts," Large Changing Gallery, Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Va., March 24 - July 18, 2010. "Get Real: Figurative Sculpture by Women," Peninsula Fine Arts Center, Newport News, VA, September 20, 2019 - January 5, 2020.Published References_Journal of Glass Studies_, Vol. 37 (Corning, NY: The Corning Museum of Glass, 1995), No. 52, p. 121. Diane C. Wright, _Glass Masterworks from the Chrysler Museum of Art_ (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2017), pg. 162-163.
