UPDATE: The Glancy Family is heartbroken to announce Michael’s passing on August 29, 2020 after a hard-fought battle with lung cancer. Please read his obituary here.
Michael Glancy was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1950. He began working with glass in 1970 as a student. Glancy received a BFA from the University of Denver in 1973 and a second BFA in sculpture from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1977. He earned an MFA in glass from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1980, where he studied with Dale Chihuly.
Glancy was a member of the Adjunct Faculty and a Senior Critic, in the Jewelry & Metalsmithing Dept. at the Rhode Island School of Design for nearly 40 years, He has also been a recurring guest faculty member at the Pilchuck Glass School in Stanwood, WA.
Glancy’s career included numerous solo and group exhibitions, most recently in private galleries and art fairs in New York City, Paris, London, Brussels and Basel. His work has been acquired by major museums and public collections, across the USA and worldwide. See a partial listing HERE.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City acquired their first Michael Glancy object in 1980 from the inaugural exhibition of Heller Gallery on Madison Ave. Curators returned 27 years later to acquire a major work for the 2007 exhibition ONE of a KIND: The Studio Glass Movement.
In 2003 Glancy was included in the exhibition “Fire and Form,” curated by William Warmus for the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Florida. In the book accompanying the show, Warmus wrote: “Michael Glancy magnifies nature in order to reveal its underlying structure…the flat glass panels that form sculptural bases for his artworks…unfold into and inspire the vessels that sit astride them.”
For a listing of past exhibitions, click HERE.
Glancy lived and maintained a studio in Rehoboth, Massachusetts with his wife Robin of 43 years, and had two sons, Mike & Rob, and two graddaughters, Ella & Mae. Glancy was also an avid gardener, sailor, and raced a wooden Beetle Cat sailboat out of the Edgewood Yacht Club in Edgewood, RI.
Michael Glancy Glassworks 