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Glen Michaels
Glen Michaels "Winter Wind", Pentaptych Mosaic Stone

1970s

About the Item

SALE ONE WEEK ONLY This American Modern mosaic abstract sculpture has an extraordinary flow and liquid movement that belies its creation in stone. Its color is in keeping with the title, Winter Wind, a cold gray with sparks of orange and golden sepia. Michaels passed away in 2020 and was remembered by Cranbrook Art Museum: “Michaels is featured in the upcoming book, With Eyes Opened: Cranbrook Academy of Art Since 1932 (available in 2021) and will have work featured in the accompanying exhibition opening at Cranbrook Art Museum in June 2021. Below is an excerpt from the book, written by Eva Caston. “Glen Michaels was initially inclined towards a career in music. He played piano for vaudeville shows and won a scholarship to the Yale School of Music in 1950. There he drew caricatures for the school newspaper, painted portraits, and published a book of cartoons entitled Oh, You’re a Musician, which caught the attention of New Yorker cartoonists Mary Petty and Alan Dunn. He went on to receive his BA in arts education from Eastern Washington University in 1957. His teachers at Eastern Washington, Opal Fleckenstein and Frank Okada, alumni of Cranbrook Academy of art, encouraged Michaels to study there. Cranbrook proved to be a formative environment for Michaels. He arrived as a painter, but soon his fascination with tiles, found objects, and sculpture engendered an aesthetic that exploited the gap between two-dimensional and three-dimensional work. After he graduated, Michaels was hired as a teacher for the Young People’s Art Program, a partnership between the Junior League of Birmingham, Michigan, and Cranbrook Art Museum. He was a leader in the program from 1958 until 1965 and saw it as one of the first initiatives by Cranbrook to be more involved with the local community. Glen Michaels is a world-renown architectural sculptor from Troy, Michigan, born in Spokane, Washington. He has had works displayed in the Detroit People Mover Bricktown Station, the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and the Ford Motor Company 1964 New York World's Fair exhibit (now installed in the Henry Ford Centennial Library). He attended Yale, where he contributed to campus humor magazine The Yale Record. After he was released from the Army, the GI Bill of Rights gave Michaels the means to study piano at Yale University, but after two years there “I decided I was interested in creating drawings, not music,” he says. He then attended Cranbrook Academy of Art receiving a MFA. His work can be found at Saint Joseph Mercy Oakland Hospital and Birmingham’s Baldwin Public Library. In 2017 the Scarab Club, the renowned 110-year old artist’s club, gallery and studio located in Midtown Detroit, honored Glen by asking him to sign one of the wooden ceiling beams located in their second floor lounge. Previous signers include Diego Rivera, Norman Rockwell, Eliel Saarinen, Marshall Fredericks, Marcel Duchamp and Balthazar Korab. Michaels was the 2017 recipient of the Birmingham Cultural Arts Award.
  • Creator:
    Glen Michaels
  • Creation Year:
    1970s
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 50 in (127 cm)Width: 66 in (167.64 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
  • Gallery Location:
    Detroit, MI
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU128617839202
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