Suzanne Regan Pascal carved and chiseled glass nude torso

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Suzanne Regan Pascal carved and chiseled glass nude torso

About the Item

A wonderful chiseled carved and polished glass nude torso by the talented artist Suzanne Pascal. Her style is quite unique. When you read her biography below, you will understand. She was only able to use her technique on heavy 100 year old glass found in a 19th slag glass factory. It is because the glass had endured 100+ years of extreme heat and cold that it became tempered and strong enough to withstand Pascal's technique. She lived in California and befriended the hollywood crowd. In fact her sculptures reside in the collections of The Reagans and Nixons. One of her sculptures was presented as a gift of the US to Prince Charles and Diana at their wedding. Another interesting note is the the United Nations commissioned a large sculpture for it's entrance, but the artist could not find a large enough piece of slag glass and contacted corning to try and make her one. Unfortunately they could not replicate what age had done to the slag glass and the project was abandoned. The torso is quite heavy and signed on the bottom front.

Her Biography from askart:

Suzanne Pascal was born in Miles City, Montana in 1914. Deaf until age eighteen, she was never able to attend school. Her mother, whom she credits with encouraging her in everything she did, communicated with her through drawings.

As a young girl Suzanne Pascal studied sculpture in Italy and painting in Paris. She returned to California to live and work. She is known for her sculpturing of glass with hammer and chisel. Her work can be found in many private collections and museums around the world.

In 1985 she was appointed by President Reagan to a four year term on the Commission of Fine Arts.
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The following, submitted July 2003, is from James F. Kadlec, M.D., whose source is "The Oxford Companion to Twentieth Century Art".

Pascal, Suzanne (1914- ). American sculptor in glass, born in Montana, daughter of a French painter, Charles Pascal. Owing to deafness she used drawing as a means of communication from an early age. She went to Italy at the age of 11 to study sculpture under Professor Julius Attillio and later studied painting in Paris for ten years, but subsequently reverted to sculpture.

She began glass sculpture in 1952, but it was not until 1964 that she discovered, in an abandoned glass factory at Dunbar, Pennsylvania, and she became sufficiently hardened by weathering to stand up to carving with hammer and chisel.

She had one-man shows in Zurich (1966), New York (1966, 1972), Los Angeles (1967), the American Cultural center, Tokyo (1968), Paris (1970) and at the O Hana Gallery, London (1974).

Her works are represented in among others, the Los Angeles County Museum of
Art, the Petit Palais Museum, Geneva and the permanent collections of the American Embassies in London and Tokyo.

Note:
"She was featured in "People" magazine a number of years ago, and her works are in some of the most prestigious collections in California. One of her works was given by the US as a wedding gift to Prince Charles and Diana.
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The following, submitted January 2005, is from Cathy Nihart who knew Suzanne Pascal in the '60s. ..."our families have lost contact since the '80s."

The last time I saw Pascal was in '81 at her show opening in NYC, which featured her large steel cutouts rather than her glass.

A collection of her glass sculpture was at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, DC, but no longer on display. Pascal lived in Beverly Hills next door to actor Robert Young. She knew Ronald and Nancy Reagan prior to his governorship. Pascal was connected on the periphery of Hollywood and politics. She placed her glass sculpture in collections of the Reagans, the Nixons and Armand Hammer, who made a gift of a glass horse's head to Prince Charles and Diana upon their marriage. I believe some of this glass sculpture is also in the LA Art Museum. Her daughter Jill marketed the smaller pieces as jewelry.

Suzanne Pascal sculpted the glass in her studio, which was a converted garage at her Beverly Hills home. The glass was old slag from a foundry in Pennsylvania, which her second husband, Maury Klein, discovered and bought for her in the late '60s. Only very old glass would work with her method, which process she kept highly secret. From what I could gather, she used a proprietary but common chemical procedure to "soften" the glass prior to sculpting, which included a blow torch among her tools. Part of the mystique of the slag glass story was that it worked for Pascal's method because it had been tempered for 100+ years in the extreme Pennsylvania weather. Corning Glass even tried to recreate the old glass formula for her but was unable to (similar to LC Tiffany in a way), since the UN wanted her to sculpt a HUGE piece for the entryway, and the old slag was available in smaller sections only.

Pascal's first husband was a band leader named Buffano, with whom she had her only child Jill in the early '40's. Her latest husband was a U.S. Naval Chaplain and Roman Catholic Monsignor named James Regan, who left the priesthood upon his retirement from the Navy in order to marry her in the '70s.

Pascal studied painting in France under Marcel Dyf, a fine impressionist who studied with Picasso. I remember her most vividly throughout the '60s when our family saw her most often. She was charming and elegant, full of "joie de vive" and fabulous stories, regularly wore original Balenciaga suits and jetted about intercontinentally prior to the trend.

Dimensions:
Height: 26 in (66.04 cm)Width: 12 in (30.48 cm)Depth: 10.5 in (26.67 cm)
Materials and Techniques:
Glass,Steel,Carved
Place of Origin:
United States
Period:
1960-1969
Date of Manufacture:
1960's
Condition:
Very good to excellent for sculpture, base has a few nick and bright marks to it.
Seller Location:
Palm Springs, CA
Reference Number:
1stDibs: U11050983501421