As a material, glass is ubiquitous. However, it is more than just the screen on your smartphone. Glass is an artistic medium, capable of using a vibrant visual language to convey powerful ideas about who we are, and how we feel about the world around us.

Like painters with a palette, glass artists harness the unique qualities of molten glass to make artwork capable of telling the same stories art has been telling for centuries. Glass can create landscapes that represent the world around us; reflect how we see ourselves and others in portraits; compose still lives that discuss our relationship to our material culture; or be sculpted in abstract works that convey emotion and ideas.

Out of the vault: art history 101 takes visitors on a visual journey through the four basic pillars of art history: landscape, portraiture, still life, and abstraction, showcased through new and significant acquisitions from the Museum’s collections.