Fred Tschida (born 1949, Saint Paul, Minnesota) is an American neon artist and professor of glass.

Early life and education

While attending St. Cloud State University, Tschida interned with glass sculptor

Dale Chihuly Dale Chihuly () (born September 20, 1941) is an American glass artist and entrepreneur. He is best known in the field of blown glass, "moving it into the realm of large-scale sculpture". Early life Dale Patrick Chihuly was born on September 20 ...

, who taught him how to work with neon. Tschida earned his M.F.A. from the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...

in 1977 and built the university's first neon studio.

Career and work

Tschida's work focuses on kinetic neon sculpture. In "Light in Motion" (1980), Tschida aimed to travel "the speed of light" by mounting a 22-foot neon mast to the top of a Chevy Impala and driving on the

Bonneville Salt Flats The Bonneville Salt Flats are a densely packed salt pan in Tooele County in northwestern Utah. A remnant of the Pleistocene Lake Bonneville, it is the largest of many salt flats west of the Great Salt Lake. It is public land managed by the Bur ...

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

, taking a time-lapse photo of the endeavor. A photo of "Light in Motion" was featured on the cover o
''Glass: The UrbanGlass Art Quarterly''
in 1996 for an issue in which his work is profiled by glass art critic and curator

William Warmus William Warmus is a curator, art critic, and author focusing on transparent media. Education Warmus holds a B.A. in art history from the University of Chicago in 1975 and was enrolled in the Masters in General Studies in the Humanities program in ...

. In 1985, Chihuly invited Tschida to teach glass art at

Pilchuck Glass School Pilchuck Glass School is an international center for glass art education. The school was founded in 1971 by Dale Chihuly, Anne Gould Hauberg (1917-2016), and John H Hauberg (1916-2002). The campus is located on a former tree farm in Stanwood, W ...

and to establish the school's neon shop alongside Deborah Dohne. In 1991, his installation "Martini Glass" was featured in the American Craft Museum exhibition "Vessels: From Use to Symbol." Curator

described the intent of the "Martini Glass": "It attracts attention to the exhibition in the same way that signs on neighborhood bars are designed to lure us inside." In 2006,

Corning Museum of Glass The Corning Museum of Glass is a museum in Corning, New York in the United States, dedicated to the art, history, and science of glass. It was founded in 1951 by Corning Glass Works and currently has a collection of more than 50,000 glass obje ...

curator Tina Oldknow described Tschida as "a mainstay of the influential glass program at Alfred University. She described his work, which involves light, gravity, electricity, mass, and atmosphere as "always inventive and exciting." In July 2007, Tschida was a visiting artist at the

and worked with the museum to make large glass beads for a sculpture. Tschida taught as Professor of Glass and Design at

Alfred University Alfred University is a private university in Alfred (village), New York, Alfred, New York. It has a total undergraduate population of approximately 1,600 students. The university hosts the New York State College of Ceramics, which includes The ...

until his retirement in 2015.

Select exhibitions

* 1987 – ''Neon: New Artistic Expressions'' at

Bruce Museum of Arts and Science The Bruce Museum is a museum in downtown Greenwich, Connecticut with both art and natural history exhibition space. The Bruce's main building sits on a hill in a downtown park, and its tower (not open to the public) can be easily seen by drivers pa ...

, Greenwich, Connecticut * 1991 – ''Vessels: From Use to Symbol'',

American Craft Museum The Museum of Arts and Design (MAD), based in Manhattan, New York City, collects, displays, and interprets objects that document contemporary and historic innovation in craft, art, and design. In its exhibitions and educational programs, the mus ...

, Manhattan, New York * 2001 – ''Luminous Beginnings: Neon Art From the '50s, '60s and '70s.'',

Museum of Neon Art The Museum of Neon Art (MONA) is an institution that exists to encourage learning and curiosity through the preservation, collection, and interpretation of neon art. The first museum devoted to art that incorporates neon lighting, it exclusively e ...

, Glendale, California * 2021 – ''CIRCLESPHERE:'' Alternative explorations in ne
. 7A Event Space
& The Art House, Wakefield, England

Awards

Tschida received the 2014 Libensky/Brychtova Award from

, which acknowledges extraordinary talent and high achievement in the world of glass and educational leadership. The award jury described Tschida as a "leading pioneer of neon as an expressive medium" who has "inspired new generations of glass artists."

References

20th-century American artists 21st-century American artists American glass artists 1949 births Living people {{authority control