Dan Dailey

This lavishly illustrated volume honors the art of a master glass maker. Dailey has created a huge body of work, including lamps, vases, mosaics, tables, wall reliefs, free-standing sculptures and monumental structures such as the two-ton cast-glass relief mural in the Rainbow Room in New York City. The photos attest to his technical mastery as well as to the inventiveness of his designs, which incorporate everything from human and animal characters to skyscrapers, mythological figures and musical instruments, in a recent series on jazz that is both abstract and representational. Some of the whimsical drawings on which Dailey bases his work are included, showing his superb draftsmanship and his preoccupation with the vagaries of human nature. Noted graphic designer Glaser pays tribute to the artist as the head of a dynamic glassmaking studio. Warmus, former curator of the Corning Museum of Glass, gives an overview of Dailey's career. Oldknow, the Corning Museum's curator of modern glass, talks with Dailey about his relationship to art of the past, his subject matter, and his training in glass factories in Italy and France. Photos of Dailey and his assistants as well as supplemental material about his career round out this visually stunning coffee-table book. (Oct.)