C-/
The Janice Charach
Epstein Museum Gallery
showcases highlights of six
prominent collections om
the Jewish communi
SUZANNE CHESSLER
Special to The Jewish News
f you've ever wondered what tempts a
particular person to buy a work of art,
you'll find some very personal answers
shared by a handful of Jewish collectors
celebrating Michigan Glass Month. Besides
showing favorite finds, they have written and
are displaying the reasons that compelled their
purchases.
"The Art of the Acquisition: Contemporary
Glass from the Jewish Community" fills the
Janice Charach Epstein Museum Gallery
through May 14.
Each of six glass collections is represented by
three pieces — an initial acquisition, a particu-
larly meaningful work and a recent buy. The
collectors include Carolyn and Jerome Ash,
Joan and Bernie Chodorkoff, Warren and
Margo Coville, Byron and Dorothy Gerson,
Jack and Aviva Robinson and Jean Sosin. In
addition, the work of several prominent Jewish
glass artists is featured.
The Robinsons, who have given 80 works of
glass to the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) for
permanent display, have been glass enthusiasts
for 25 years, the time frame in which the medi-
um moved from being thought of as a craft to
being thought of as fine art.
"We're attracted to the transparency of
Suzanne Chessler is a Farmington Hills-based
freelance writer.
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1998
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r
glass," said Mrs. Robinson, a watercolor artist
who has had 16 one-woman exhibitions over
the past 20 years and will have another in the
fall at the Uzelac Gallery in Pontiac. "Ours is
a very broad collection and very contempo-
rary.
For the April 2-May 14 exhibition, the
Robinsons are showing a Mark Peiser vessel, a
Dale Chihuly sculpture and a Stanislav
Libensky/Jaroslava Brychtova sculpture.
"We first became involved with glass after
wandering into a storefront gallery in Dearborn
and being amazed at the variety of ideas that
artists were presenting in glass," Mrs. Robinson
said. "The Mark Peiser vessel was then and still
is one of the wonders of the glass world.
Colored glass was applied in successive layers to
create a painting in the round."
The Chihuly work is the artist's first attempt
at incorporating pieces inside of pieces. It has