Struck by light, German artist Josepha Gasch-Muche’s shattered glass shard sculptures achieve an extraordinary ethereality, simultaneously embodying irresistible attraction in the face of obvious potential danger. A tantalizing mix of man-made material and light often used as a symbol of knowledge, wisdom, and grace, Gasch-Muche’s work has inspired others.

To capture the ephemeral qualities of light that Gasch-Muche coaxes out of the interaction between glass and light, architect Thomas Phifer drew on this Gasch-Muche cube encrusted with thousands of paper-thin slivers of broken glass and included in the museum’s collection, in designing the award-winning 100,000 square foot new wing of the Corning Museum of Glass.

In 2020 musician Yuki Shibamoto spent days in Heller Gallery transfixed by a wall sculpture as she composed an original piece entitled A Tale of One Thousand Pieces of Glass which you can listen to here.

Works by Josepha Gasch-Muche can be found in numerous public collections including The Museum Kunst Palast, Dusseldorf; Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, NY, Ernsting Foundation Alter Hof Herding, Coesfeld-Lette; Alexander Tutsek Foundation, Munich; Musée-Atelier du Verre, Sars-Poteries; the Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA; Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, OH; and the Shanghai Museum of Glass.

Shanghai Museum of Glass, Shanghai, PR China
Kunstsammlungen der Veste Coburg, Germany
Glasmuseum Hentrich,Museum Kunst Palest, Düsseldorf, Germany
Musée Mudac, Lausanne, Switzerland
Ernsting Foundation, Coesfeld-Lette, Germany
Alexander Tutsek Foundation, Munich, Germany
VGH Versicherungen, Hannover, Germany
Museum Würth, Künzelsau, Germany
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany
Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, NY
Musée-Atelier du Verre, Sars-Poteries, France
Lowe Art Museum, Miami, FL
Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, OH
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA