A look at the life and career of Lalique.
“René Lalique had an incredible range,” says Diane Wright, the Chrysler Museum’s Barry Curator of Glass. In addition to fashioning the “wonderful substance,” as he described glass, into a spectrum of luxury items, “he was very interested in producing very beautiful designs at a price point for the middle class.”
More than 200 objects by the iconic French designer are now on view in Enchanted by Glass, a new exhibition at the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk open through Jan. 21, 2018.
The exhibition, which debuted at the Corning Museum of Glass in New York in 2014, has been augmented with pieces from the Chrysler’s permanent Lalique collection as well as from private collectors. Spanning Lalique’s career, it begins with his early work as a jeweler and features perfume bottles (his first foray into glass), as well as smoking accoutrements, vases and luxury travel items. Highlights include the dramatic automobile mascot “Victoire,” designed in 1928, and a figurine from the 40-foot-tall glass fountain the artist created for the World’s Fair in Paris in 1925. Chrysler.org
