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Josh Simpson, peacock blue iridescent threaded vase, 1979, iridescent silver glass. — Tommy Olof Elder photo

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FOR 11/23

JOSH SIMPSON ‘JOURNEY IN GLASS’ ON VIEW AT SPRINGFIELD MUSEUMS w/1 cut

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SPRINGFIELD, MASS. — “Josh Simpson: A Visionary in Glass, 1972–2007,” a retrospective exhibition highlighting more than three decades of glassblowing by one of the most acclaimed artists in the field, is on view through February 3 at the Springfield Museum of Fine Arts.

The exhibition of more than 100 works from the artist’s personal collection traces the journey of this self-taught master of glass from his early traditional pieces to the multilayered works of the present.

Highlights from the exhibit are a group of flower vases from the 1980s, which are antecedents of the inhabited vases he make today, a diverse group of “Megaplanets” from 1977 to the present, a “Ruby Saturn” and a group of his “Tektites,” made from glass that is chemically similar to real meteorites.

The exhibition also features other early and rarely seen glass sculptures, a collection of his red New Mexico glass, copper baskets, iridescent vases, goblets, perfume bottles, portals and inhabited vases.

Simpson, whose studio is in Shelburne Falls, Mass., first experimented with glass in 1970 when he was a student at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y. Since then, he has devoted himself to mastering all aspects of glassmaking by designing and building his own furnaces and tools, learning glass chemistry to create a spectrum of colors, and mastering ancient techniques of blowing and forming.

He has found inspiration in NASA images of Earth, and perhaps his greatest satisfaction is derived from his “planets”: luminous glass spheres encasing kaleidoscopic landscapes, underwater scenes and vistas of outer space that reflect Earth’s vastness and complexity. One of his mega-planets, recently commissioned by the Corning Museum of Glass, weighs 107 pounds and is the world’s largest glass paperweight. The making of this planet was the subject of the PBS documentary Defying Gravity.

His work is in the permanent collections of many museums, including the Springfield Museum of Fine Arts, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the White House Collection of American Crafts and the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague.

The exhibit was organized by the Huntsville Museum of Art in cooperation with Josh Simpson Contemporary Glass.

The Museum of Fine Arts is on the Quadrangle at 21 Edwards Street downtown. For information, 413-263-6800 or www.springfieldmuseums.org.