Drawings on Glass

IMPOSSIBLE was the one-word answer cabled by Sculptor Jacob Epstein. Director John M. Gates of Steuben Glass got better answers from 27 other famed sculptors, painters, etchers. Result: a unique show that opened last week in the Steuben glass house on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue. On display went 27 crystal bowls, vases and urns engraved with designs by the 27 artists.

A generation ago glass was cut to make it sparkle, concealing greyness and flaws in the crystal. Today, such firms as Orrefors in Sweden and Steuben in the U. S. produce glass so flawless that it can be cut to contrast a silhouetted design against clear, elusive crystal. By an optical illusion, the cuts appear as bas-relief. Steuben's skilled craftsmen took the commissioned artists' sketches, blew and engraved every piece by hand. Prices ranged from $400 for Jean Hugo's classical urn with centaur and unicorn to $1,000 for Henri Matisse's Oriental piper.

Caught in the crystal like flies in amber were Surrealist Salvador Dali's woman with bureau drawers for breasts, a massive Spanish fountain by Etcher Sir Muirhead Bone, an opium-ridden fantasy of Painter-Poet Jean Cocteau, a woman feeding hens, by Iowa's Grant Wood. Even the shading of characteristic artists' tools was faithfully reproduced, from the wavy Japanese brush strokes of Isamu Noguchi's cat to the sculptural modeling of a Maillol nude (see cut}.

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