This is Glass
A commission by the Toledo Museum of Art for the entrance of the museum’s new glass gallery that opened in 1972. “It says, ‘this is glass’ if anything ever could,” said Otto Wittmann, director of the Museum, “and it was done by a contemporary craftsman right in Toledo, Ohio.”
Otto Wittmann commissioned Dominick Labino, a glass engineer and also a glass craftsman. Labino had become so fascinated with glass blowing that he made his own glass furnace. For this project, he built a big, rectangular floor piece into which was poured the molten glass. He poured different colors one on top of the other to get the effect he wanted. His squares were built into a wooden frame and arranged as if it were a painting.
After it was finished, Otto Wittman asked, “What are you going to charge us for all this time you’ve given us and all this beautiful glass?” Nick said, “My friend Boeschenstein gave the gallery, the least I could do is to give the mural.”
“So, that’s the story of glass. The glass [collection] came from Mr. Libbey, and the collection was developed and expanded by the museum. The gallery was built by Mr. and Mrs. Boeschenstein, who gave the money for it, and the glass mural was given by one of the great glass craftsmen of our time.”