Glass from behind the Iron Curtain

18:07:20 11th July 2008

King's Lynn Art Centre Gallery is to host an exhibition featuring 600 post-war glass designs by previously unnamed artists who worked from behind the Iron Curtain.

The Czech exhibits are owned by Dr Graham Cooley who is keen to showcase glass designs that were created from the 1950s onwards, and which were replicated for sale in the west. The names of the artists responsible were held back by the communist regime, but Dr Cooley is keen to finally give them the recognition they deserve.

Dr Cooley told Chris Hill at edp24.co.uk: "There have been countless studies on the other significant glass movements in Italy and Scandinavia, but one of the tenets of communism was to stamp out the culture of the individual so a lot of eastern European designers were not advertised as they were in the west."

The exhibition is called Hi Sklo Lo Sklo - From Masterpiece to Mass Produced and will explore how the mark of each individual artist was altered for mass production.

Dr Cooley also plans to educate visitors on the potential value and history of their own household glass designs.