John Luebtow: Perfect Investigations of Beauty and Abstraction

Over the past 55 plus years, John Gilbert Luebtow has become one of the most respected names in contemporary glass sculpture. Inspired by Friedrich Froebel, the inventor of kindergarten, the artist developed innovative technical processes in glass-making, introducing and incorporating gesture and expressive qualities into impeccably finished sculptural components. A student of Harvey Littleton, Mark Peiser and others, Luebtow explored blown, cast, and fused glass, as well as other techniques.

Lois Lambert Gallery, Santa Monica, California, presented Retrospective – From 1972 to 2023, a recent exhibition of work by 82-year-old Luebtow. Lambert wrote: “Luebtow has been creating art for over 55 years, specializing in kiln formed glass, and has become one of the most important names in contemporary glass sculpture. He is most known for his innovation in the technical processes of working with glass, developing his own methods and even building his own tools for creating large-scale glass sculptures and installations up to 25 feet tall.

At the heart of Luebtow’s artistic philosophy is a curiosity about the processes of creation and a commitment to forging something entirely new. Luebtow’s work integrates glass with architecture, becoming equal parts artistic expression and engineering endeavors. Despite his skilled background in drawing, painting, and ceramics, Luebtow ultimately has chosen glass as his primary medium, as ‘no other material deals with light, line, movement, change, intensity…all things visual…as glass does, while also paralleling life, having an inner and outer self, and an internal and external presence or being.’ 

Inspiration for Luebtow’s work can be found in everything that is experienced in life, pairing beauty along with the reality of life’s struggles. ‘The events of our times, then and now, affect everything we do and are allowed to do. We are what we have experienced and what we remember.’ Luebtow’s sculptures, though not limited to, can be categorized by two different themes: political/social commentary and the abstraction of beauty. Many of Luebtow’s sculptures use images of the American flag to reflect on and process political and social happenings. Other works utilize linear and geometric forms with added surface embellishment, to create technically perfect investigations of beauty and abstraction.”

Exploring rhythm and movement of line in sculptural form, Luebtow developed his Linear Form Series of cast and slumped glass sculpture. Working on a large scale required engineering skills to design and build kilns as large as 14’ long x 10’ wide x 4’ tall to produce the elements for large scale architectural installations. Working with float glass, Luebtow left his mark on architectural spaces in and around Los Angeles, where his studio is located, and the country. His art required the design and building of equipment and development of processes that were almost as much art as the art itself. Projects such as Invenire, Ventus Vitae, and Sapere Aude were groundbreaking aesthetic and technical highlights of his career as a sculptor.

Luebtow, a Milwaukee, Wisconsin native, holds a BA from California Lutheran College, and two distinct MFAs from UCLA (one in ceramics and one in glass). Since 1966, Luebtow has exhibited in over 175 exhibitions throughout the United States and abroad, including exhibitions at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA; Tacoma Art Museum, WA; Zimmer Museum, CA; Corning Museum, NY; Carnegie Museum, PA; Oakland Museum of Art, CA; Santa Monica Museum of Art, CA; Louisville Art Museum, KY; Manhattan Beach Art Museum, CA; and Orange County Museum of Art, CA. His work has been commissioned by major public and private corporations including Hewlett-Packard (HP), ARCO (Atlantic Richfield), American Airlines, NESTLÉ (Carnation), and the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla. Over 160 articles have been published about Luebtow’s work.

Wrote Shana Nys Dambrot for Patricia Correa Gallery: “John Luebtow has consistently addressed a quadrum of fundamental sculptural issues throughout his career: line, form, space, and light. These are broad considerations, to be sure; to a certain extent, they are inherent to all visual art media. What is significant in Luebtow’s fidelity to this set of issues is not only his tenacity in the unraveling of their mysterious laws, but also the extraordinarily wide range of approaches he has drawn to them. The mystery he pursues is the technical spiritual identity of his medium. He searches within the sovereign form of his subjects for the abstract evidence of the energetic rhythm of movement.” 

For a full review of his career, Luebtow has written and published Glass, A Life Time of Creating,available now.