Robert Held (Born 1943) American/Canadian, Hand Blown Art Glass Vase. "Pulled feather" swirl pattern with iridescent features on a light blue body. Signed along bottom edge, original label affixed to underside. 

Size: 4 1/4 x 4 1/4 x 8 in. 

Robert Held was born in Santa Ana, California in 1943. As a youth he was exposed to art, and first began painting in high school. He attended the University of Southern California School of Fine Arts, where he discovered ceramics and was awarded the Glen Lukens Award before graduating in 1965. After a brief hiatus he returned to USC to pursue his Masters in Fine Arts, and then immigrated to Canada where he became head of the Ceramics Department at the Sheridan School of Design in Oakville, Ontario. While there he attended a workshop on glassblowing in 1968 and discovered his true passion, leaving a permanent position in academia to open a glass shop in Calgary in the mid 1970s. Finding himself at the forefront of the blossoming Canadian modern glass movement, he moved to a larger facility in Vancouver in 1985, and continued to teach on the side for the next thirty years until relocating once more to Parksville in 2013, where the Robert Held Art Glass studio remained a pivotal part of the local art scene until he retired and closed it down in 2024 after suffering a stroke. He now devotes himself to painting with alcohol ink, with exhibitions of his newest medium at local galleries and art centers, but his earlier glass and ceramic works can be found in public and private collections throughout North America and Europe. 

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