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By Sara Anne Corrigan
(As printed in
Evansville Living)
 It's
been more than 25 years since Susan and Alan Shovers got
their first piece of art glass - a black amethyst vase
that came as a gift from Susan's mother.
Collecting additional pieces became a
shared hobby for the Evansville couple who eventually
acquired a collection that now includes upwards of 500
pieces - not including the ones that have been broken over
time.
Now, however, Susan says she no longer
wants to acquire more and some days even thinks about
selling it all "except for a few pieces I am still
especially fond of."
Black amethyst glass - so-called
because it appears largely as opaque black in color unless
held up to a light to reveal a deep amethyst-purple hue -
is highly prized by many collectors. It simply has been
eclipsed in the Shovers' home by Alan's more recent
fascination with and purchase of Steuben Glass.
His collection is not the brilliant
clear crystal the company in Corning, New York, has been
making since the 1930s, the crystal currently found in
fine jewelry and gift shops nationwide. Rather, Alan has
sought out the original hand crafted and blown tinted
glass objects made by Steuben's original designer,
Frederick Carder, in the company's early days from 1903 to
1933.
To call Carder's creations "show
stoppers" would be a gross understatement. Visitors to the
Shovers home know this. It was nine years ago that Alan,
an Evansville attorney in general practice with the firm
Kahn, Dees, Donovan and Kahn, bought his first piece of
Steuben Glass. And it wasn't the name that grabbed his
attention. The alabaster-white vase trimmed in black
caught his eye, he recalls: "I liked the simplicity of it.
I had to have it."
The vase had a $400 price tag. "At the
time, it was the most we'd ever spent on a piece of
glass," Alan says. It was only later that he learned the
pedigree of the piece.
A "verre d'soie" pitcher with black
reeding was his second acquisition a few years later and
even then, it wasn't the name Steuben that caught his
attention; it was simply the beauty of the object.
About three and a half years ago, Alan
says his pursuit of Carder/Steuben Glass picked up pace.
"I didn't know I was hooked yet," Alan recalls. "We were
in California, at an antique show, and I saw this gold 'Aurene'
bowl and I had to have it. It was a Carder/Steuben piece."
A serious case of sticker shock ($1,200) stopped the
Shovers from buying the bowl, Alan recalls, "But I
couldn't get it out of my mind after we came home. "When
we went back three months later it was still there, and
that time I bought it," he says, explaining the price had
become secondary to his passion to own the piece.
Alan's interest grew after that into
what he and Susan agree is something of an obsession, he
began to seek information and collecting tips as well as
pieces of glass from dealers he met. Dealers generally are
a friendly lot, eager to share what they know, even if you
don't buy from them, he says. Primary among Alan's sources
of education is a book, "The Glass of Frederick Carder,"
by Paul Gardner, who had been an assistant of Carder's at
Steuben and later curator of the decorative arts
department at the Smithsonian Institute. Of the book, Alan
recalls, "I looked at all the pretty pictures - the
incredible variety in what he (Carder) did and what made
his stuff special. I also learned there's a lot of fakery.
I have bought a few fakes in my time; it's a bitter pill.
"Now I can pick them out of a lineup,"
he adds with pride. At these prices, learning to tell the
difference is important: A small piece of Carder's Steuben
Glass can cost several hundred dollars; large and
particularly rare pieces command prices in the thousands
of dollars, the Shovers say. Susan allows that her husband
has done a tremendous amount of research in the past few
years to defend himself against fakery.
He traveled to Corning, New York, in
September 2000 for a symposium on Steuben Glass. "I sat
back in awe and just listened," Alan recalls. "Corning is
the Mecca for glass and glass collectors all over the
world. There are two glass museums there and numerous
shops."
Steuben, incidentally, is the name of
the county in New York where the town of Corning is
located. Steuben Glass is named for the county and has
nothing to do with anything German. Carder himself came to
Steuben from England in 1903, Alan explains.
At the symposium Alan made friends who
have since helped educate him. This includes an Internet
friend who routinely "tests" him on his knowledge and
chastises him when he makes a mistake.
 Another
dealer/collector has tutored Alan in the fine art of
photographing glass. Digital cameras and the Internet have
facilitated both exercises, Alan says.
Alan's private collection of Steuben
Glass now totals around 250 pieces. The collection as a
whole is museum-quality, he says with pride. Special
enclosed glass cases filled with Steuben Glass line the
Shovers' hallway. "This house has become a glass museum,"
Susan explains "but this also is a house where people
live. I like to have stuff 'out.'" Table lamps and several
large pieces are worked into the general interior décor of
the house, but closed glass cabinets hold the majority of
the collection.
"This is a lifetime collection that
I've done in a very short amount of time. I've been very
fortunate to be in the right place at the right time
(including the Internet auction site, eBay) to find and
purchase these pieces," Alan says.
The collection has become so
definitive and Alan's knowledge so vast that this
September, on the occasion of his second visit to the
Steuben Glass symposium in New York, he will be one of the
main speakers. "I'll be talking about my collection and
showing my photographs," he says.
The photographs too, are scheduled to
become the centerpiece for a new Web site dedicated to
Steuben Glass. It should be up and running later this
year, Alan says. In the meantime he suggests visiting an
existing site,
www.Cardersteubenclub.com.
For her part, Susan maintains that
while she doesn't want any more of that amethyst glass in
her house, every new piece of Steuben is a welcome
addition. "This house has a lot of color in it," she
explains. "The glass just goes with the décor."
Steuben Glassworks was founded in 1903
when Frederick Carder (1863-1963) left his position as art
director at Stevens & Williams, a leading English glass
house.
He came to Corning, a town in Steuben
County, New York, where he had the freedom to design,
develop and produce highly artistic, fine quality, hand
blown lead glass. Some were crystal blanks for other glass
cutting firms, but he also began his own production of
both crystal and colored glass. Many consider Carder as
possibly the most creative and innovative craftsman in
decorative colored art glass during the 20th century,
mastering every known technique of glass-making and
inventing many more.
From 1903 to 1933 his artistic talent,
coupled with his multitudes of new glass formulas, created
whole new styles and improved many existing ones. This
variety and richness includes more than 7,000 different
shapes and forms, and the development of hundreds of
different colors and major compositional families.
Carder was best known for his
shimmering, iridescent gold and blue Aurene and other
graceful Art Nouveau glasses. World War I stopped
production because art glass was a non-essential industry.
This forced the sale of the glassworks to Corning
Glassworks.
Tastes also changed after the war and
Carder responded to this modern style although he
personally detested it. His classic training adapted and
flourished in the Art Deco style.
The other American art glass genius at
the time, L.C. Tiffany, couldn't adapt from his Art
Nouveau style and fell out of favor as a glass artist
after World War I.
Finally, during the Depression, in
1932, Carder was retired and "kicked upstairs." The
Steuben Division of the Corning Glassworks responded to
yet another change of style and began producing optical
quality, colorless, highly refractive lead glass. The
company continues to this day as the country's highest
quality glass producer.
Carder continued working in his
studio, creating breakthrough forms of art glass, albeit
not for production, and worked there until his retirement
at age 96. |
