Artist

John Lewis

born Berkeley, CA 1942
Born
Berkeley, California, United States
Biography

John Lewis enrolled at the University of California–Berkeley as a graduate student of architecture, where he was introduced to glassblowing by Marvin Lipofsky, the founder of the school's glass program. Lewis opened his hot-glass studio in Oakland in 1969, one of the first in the Bay Area. About ten years later, he received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts that led him to explore cast glass as a sculptural medium. He designed a furnace especially for casting glass and began experimenting, pouring liquid glass into forms of various sizes and shapes. Today, he creates cast-glass furniture pieces and decorative vessels. Lewis has collaborated with numerous artists and architects to create site-specific projects and memorials, most notably the Oklahoma City National Memorial, which commemorates the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.

Works by this artist (9 items)

Robert Laurent, Mother and Child, ca. 1924, alabaster relief in wood frame, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John N. Stern, 1996.89A-B
Mother and Child
Dateca. 1924
alabaster relief in wood frame
On view
Robert Laurent, Madame De, n.d., felt-tipped pen and ink on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1975.69
Madame De
Daten.d.
felt-tipped pen and ink on paper
Not on view
Robert Laurent, Two Boys, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1975.4.2
Two Boys
Not on view