Pair of tulip bud goblets by Lotton Art Glass, with 22k gold Leaf stems. These glasses were specially crafted by John Lotton, Charles Lotton's son, for the jeweler Joseph Holland. Matching pair of hand-painted glass and gold goblets, depicting tulip buds in delicate shades of pink, with stems of twisting vines and leaves.
Only two of these goblets were ever sold to the public, and here they are!
Size: 4 x 4 x 10 in.
#7552 .
Charles G. Lotton was born in a one room log cabin on the outskirts of Elizabethtown, Illinois in 1935. His childhood was rough, and he spent much of his time exploring the Ohio River and the surrounding wilderness. Although he was not exposed to art until he was older, he developed an early fascination with light and refraction, and his intuitive grasp of electrical equipment helped him enter the United States Air Force in 1953. He spent two years in Korea working as a troubleshooter for bombing and navigational equipment before returning to the States, where he moved to Chicago after being unable to reacclimate to life in his home village. He did a series of odd jobs before becoming a professional hairstylist, gaining an interest in color composition and texture along the way. In 1960 he met a woman named Mary while sunning on the Chicago beachfront, and they were married 6 months later. The moved to Dolton, Illinois, where he set up his own hair salon and began to explore art museums with his wife and, later, four children. In May 1970 he went to the Art Institute to see a glassblowing demonstration, then came home and told his wife he was going to become a blower himself and immediately began building a furnace in their backyard. He spent two years experimenting, teaching himself the craft without attending any lessons, until he happened to meet a Tiffany expert named Lillian Nassau. She became his first major patron and bought every piece he made for five years, which allowed him to eventually close the hair salon and focus on glass full time, moving the furnace and their home to a larger facility in Crete, Illinois. He evolved from paperweights, vases, and bowls to making flower forms, pendant lighting, lamps, and even chandeliers. His early unpolished work using melted soda bottles evolved as well as he began to explore many other types of glass, although he became best known for his swirling patterns and iridescent forms. By the 2000s Lotton, his sons David, John, and Daniel, and eventually his grandson Robert Lagestee all worked together at the Lotton Art Glass Gallery & Studios. He encouraged new artists with no training to start from scratch, just as he had done, and incorporated elements like raw sand, soda ash, lime, borax, zinc, and countless others to create unique colors and shapes. His pieces can be found in the Corning Museum of Glass, the Polk Museum in Florida, the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, and many more, as well as in private collections around the country, in particular the highly sought after pieces from his “Multi Flora” and “Cypriot” styles. Lotton passed away on September 17th, 2021, and his children continue to honor his legacy at the glassworks.
