Eric hilton

ARTIST BIO

Scottish artist Eric Hilton is a skilled master at working glass to convey the aesthetic and philosophical issues that confront artists. “Art for me is a vehicle that synthesizes order into the awe of existence. It represents the soul of human consciousness.” 

Educated at Edinburgh College of Art, where he earned his BFA and MFA, Hilton went on to teach at leading institutions across the UK, Canada and the United States.  He then became one of the leading designers for Steuben Glass from 1975-2011, while also creating prominent independent architectural commissions for Queens College (NYC), Rockefeller Center Paramount Publications (NYC), and the S.C. Johnson Wax Company Board Room Doors in Racine, WI.  His work has been featured in institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art (NYC) and the Fort Wayne Museum of Art (Fort Wayne, IN), and the World Exposition in Suntory, Japan.  He has also been a recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship.

Eric’s true passion is in the creative process in the molding, etching, cutting, sandblasting and the polishing of glass, which he feels is a conduit for light, time, and the innovations of Earth.  From large architectural sculptures to more intimate pieces, you can find the elements of life - earth, air, fire, and water in his work.  His sculptures continue to inspire awe through their precision, philosophical depth, and reverence for the natural world.

ARTIST STATEMENT:  ERIC HILTON

Glass holds within it the language of light and the rhythms of nature, the structure of mathematics, and meditative stillness.  My work invites us into an experiential dialogue with time, space, and the micro-cosmos which shapes our reality through the unseen forces of creation.

Art is one of the foundations of our life experience, echoing throughout human history.  We decipher it like a code in order to communicate with our ancestral memory.  We created stone circles to align with the stars, even then enchanted with the mysteries of the galaxy surrounding this pulse of life we call Earth.  In this vast, interconnected spiral of time, art can reach out across the rings to these ancient connections and pull them into the present for rediscovery.    

I have found that glass profoundly invites the imagination to wander in light and illusion.  We become Alice falling through the looking glass into another world so immersed in magic that when we return to our own lives, we are forever changed.  We bring with us a cast of wonder, instincts reawakened, the soul of our consciousness lit with curiosity. 

Education:

1959 Edinburgh College of Art, BFA

1960 Edinburgh College of Art, MFA

Teaching:

1971 - 1977 NYS College of Ceramics at Alfred, NY

1969 - 1971 University of Victoria, Canada

1967 - 1969 Birmingham College of Art, England

1962 - 1967 Stourbridge College of Art, England

1960 - 1962 Edinburgh College of Art, Scotland

Grants, Prizes Awards:

1981 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship

1980   National Endowment for the Arts Grant for Architectural Research

1971   Canada Council Materials Grant

1971   Canada Council Travel Grant

1970   Faculty Research Grant: University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia

1967   Major Prizewinner: Open Glaziers Competition, British Glass lndustry

1961   European Traveling Scholarship from Edinburgh College of Art, Scotland

1960   Post Graduate Scholarship: Edinburgh College of Art, Scotland

Books:

Innerland, Steuben Glass; New York, 1976 limited edition

The Council House by Lee Nordess, Perimeter Press. Chicago, 1980 

Lectures: 

University of Richmond, Virginia

Alfred University Elderhostel Series

International Glass Congress, Helsinki, Sweden

Leicester College of Art, Leicester, England

The World Craft Council Conference, Kyoto, Japan

The Royal College of Art, London, England

The Edinburgh College of Art, Edinburgh, Scotland

British Art Glass Society, Edinburgh, Scotland

Glass Art Society: Mexico City 1992, Corning 1991, Seattle 1990

Commissions:

Board Room Doors for S.C. Johnson and Son, Inc., International Conference Center, Racine, WI

Modular Architectural Units in pressed glass for Plouden & Thompson, Dial G1assworks, Stourbridge, England

Modular Units for architectural application, Ansons Gallery, London

Architectural Panels for TW. Ide, Ltd. Glass Manufacturers, London

Sandblasted Sculptural Relief, Ansons Gallery for Jaguar, Coventry, England

Sandblast Sculpture, commissioned by Ansons Gallery, Mayfair, London

Exhibited in the Building Centre, London

Crystal sculpture 'Enigmatic Pathways" for the University of Virginia, Richmond, VA

Planets Series - Corporate Gift Commission for Comdisco, Chicago

Major Architectural Commission for the Rockefeller Center, Paramount Publications

Building, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York City

Major Sculpture Commission, Queens College, New York

Major Design Work for Steuben Glass

Sculpture for Greenbriar, West Virginia

Sculpture for the World Golf Hall of Fame St. Augustine, FL

Grand Am Sculpture, Daytona, FL

Commissioned sculptures for Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 

Exhibitions:

New Vision Gallery, London

Grosvenor Gallery, London

The Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, NY

Greater Victoria Art Gallery, Victoria, British Columbia

Xerox Radial -80, Rochester, NY

State University of New York, Albany, NY

American Glass Now - Touring Exhibition

International Glass Sculpture, Lowe Art Museum, Coral Gables, FL

Lee Nordess Gallery, New York, NY

Bienally, Edinburgh, Scotland.

Illinois State University: The Art of Craft -the American View, Champaign-Urbana, IL

Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL

Jewelry Exhibition, Steuben Glass, New York, NY

New Glass - Touring

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA

Musee des Arts Decoratifs, Paris,

Otari Memorial Art Museum, Nishinomiya, Japan

Tokyo Daimaru, Tokyo, Japan

Glass Art Gallery, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Edinburgh College of Edinburgh, Scotland

Birmingham College of Art, Birmingham, England

Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art, Sapporo, Japan

Musee des Arts Decoratifs, Lausanne, Switzerland

Pilkington Glass Museum, Liverpool, England

Osaka World Exposition, Osaka, Japan