Blenko Glass Company

Blenko Glass Company, located in Milton, West Virginia, is known for its artistic hand-blown glass.

History

William J. Blenko

William J. Blenko was born in London, England in 1853. He worked at a glass factory in his youth. In 1893, he emigrated to Kokomo, Indiana, in the US, where he established the first American factory to produce sheet glass for stained glass windows. In 1903, he was forced to close his factory and return to England, due to an economic downturn.

His second business venture was in 1909, in Point Marion, Pennsylvania. This endeavor quickly failed, as did a third, in Clarksburg, West Virginia. At that time, Blenko found work at other established Ohio and West Virginia glass companies and purportedly received a job offer from Louis Comfort Tiffany.

Founding of the company

In 1921, Blenko started another sheet glass company, this time setting up in Milton, West Virginia spurred on by the low natural gas prices in the area, a major concern for glass manufacturers of the time, which drew many prospective glassblowers to the area. His new company was originally named Eureka Glass Company, later changing the name to Blenko. Until the arrival of his son, William H. Blenko, in 1923, he had no employees, making and selling all of his glass himself.

Soon after the onset of the Great Depression, which decimated the stained glass market, Blenko began to produce stemware and tableware, after finding two expert glassblowers to work for the company in 1930. However, this did not mean the end of Blenko’s stained glass industry. Blenko Glass Company still produces hand-blown sheet glass for use in stained glass windows, as well as architectural glass.

Blenko's early successes include providing glass for the stained glass windows of St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City, helping the company earn national recognition. Prior to 1946, Blenko's tableware output was largely functional and classical in form but sold very well at high end department stores throughout the country. Macy's started to carry Blenko products in 1932. As a testament to the popularity of Blenko's early tableware, the White House has a collection of Blenko table ware, which is used periodically.

Change came in 1947 with the decision to hire Winslow Anderson as a full-time design director. The work of the company's first designers achieved critical acclaim, including having several of Anderson's designs receive the Museum of Modern Art’s Good Design Awards in 1950, thereby ensconcing Blenko as a leader in modern American glass through the 1950s and 1960s. Blenko's "Historic Period", the focus of collector and cultural interest, begins with Anderson in 1946 and includes the work of John Nickerson up to 1974. The second designer, Wayne Husted, did much to propel the company into the forefront of cutting-edge design, notably including pioneering the concept of "architectural scale" designs. In 1964, Joel Philip Myers, Husted's successor and founder of the Studio Glass movement, further improved the company's importance and reputation by directly engaging Blenko with Studio Glass.

In 1980, the Blenko Glass Company started a yearly tradition to produce collectible, limited-edition glass bowls celebrating West Virginia's founding birthday.

Since 2000

In 2005, a court judgement ordered the company to pay $500,000 to its gas supplier Big Two Mile, which precipitated Blenko's financial troubles. In 2009, the company announced it was shutting down production. 20 of its 50 employees had already been laid off. The Blenko Glass Company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May 2011. In August 2012 Blenko Vice President Katie Trippe announced that Blenko Glass was rebounding after filing for bankruptcy protection. Citing increased sales and lower gas prices she said the company was making a strong effort to move forward. A reorganization plan was accepted by the court in December 2012, clearing the way for the company to exit bankruptcy in early 2013. The company exited bankruptcy in 2013 and continued to produce art glass for the consumer market. Despite increased fuel costs, a short period of inactivity, and a rapidly changing industry and marketplace, the company continued to produce glass art ware. On August 3, 2015, the Eight Annual Festival of Glass held in Milton, West Virginia brought in collectors from around the US.

Blenko’s special commissions included the Country Music Awards trophy and numerous sculptures by the contemporary Studio Glass artist Hank Adams, represented in many museums throughout the US.

As of 2020 Blenko no longer produces architectural sheet glass.

The Blenko factory

The Blenko Glass Company is housed in a multi-building facility including the Visitor's Center, office building and manufacturing, shipping and warehouse facilities. The Visitor's Center's first floor contains items available for sale including "seconds", while the upper floor contains a small display of Blenko's historical work, primarily early pieces from the 1930s and some experimental pieces and most notably includes a gallery of stained-glass windows made with Blenko sheet glass by different artisans.

Attached to the Visitor's Center is an observation area, allowing visitors to watch as the glass is blown. Beside the center is a “garden of glass”, installed by Joel Myers, on the shore of a small, man-made lake bordering the factory, strewn with colorful glass shards which border a small trail that winds around part of the factory. Myers' early work included a series of glass hands missing a finger after he, himself lost a finger in Blenko's workshop.

The factory contains eight furnaces that run continuously.

The Blenko Museum

The Blenko Museum opened in 2000, the first independent organization dedicated to research and education of the company's historical work. Aside from curating year-long exhibitions of the company's work, the Blenko Museum worked with the Corning Museum of Glass in 2005 to include Blenko in a small but powerful survey exhibition organized by Tina Oldknow, Curator of Modern Glass, titled “Decades in Glass: the ‘50s” featuring Wayne Husted's designs. Fourth-generation company President Richard Blenko often personally participated in these pledge drives.

Filmography

* (documentary) ''Blenko: Hearts of Glass'', PBS
* (documentary) ''Retro Blenko; Three Designers of American Glass,'' PBS

Places with Blenko stained glass

* Washington National Cathedral
* Reims Cathedral
* United States Air Force Academy Cadet Chapel

References

Further reading

Blenko glass 1930-1953
by Eason Eige and Rick Wilson; research by Richard Blenko, Marietta, Ohio: Antique Publications, 1987, 144p

Published in The Journal of Antiques and Collectibles, Vol. V No. 2, April 2004
*Blenko Glass: For Museums and the Masses Published in Modernism Magazine, Volume 10, No. 3, Fall, 2007

External links

Blenko Glass CompanyThe Blenko ProjectThe Corning Museum of GlassWest Virginia Museum of American GlassWheaton Arts and Cultural Center's Museum of American Glass

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Glassmaking companies of the United States
Glass museums and galleries in the United States
Manufacturing companies based in West Virginia
Art museums and galleries in West Virginia
Industry museums in West Virginia
Museums in Cabell County, West Virginia
American stained glass artists and manufacturers