Dan Owen Dailey (born February 4, 1947) is an American artist and educator, known for his sculpture. With the support of a team of artists and crafts people, he creates sculptures and functional objects in glass and metal. He has taught at many glass programs and is professor emeritus at the Massachusetts College of Art, where he founded the glass program. Emerging from the studio glass movement initiated by Harvey Littleton, Dailey's work has branched out from the mainstream by the incorporation of metal into many of the sculptures. Additionally, he has worked with several glass companies, for more than twenty years. Since 1971, Dailey's work has been featured in more than 150 exhibitions and included in over 350 juried or invitational group shows.

Early life and education

Dan Dailey was born on February 4, 1947, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Dailey attended the Philadelphia College of Art (now called the University of the Arts, BFA 1969) and Rhode Island School of Design (MFA 1972). Dailey studied with Dale Chihuly at RISD, and was Chihuly’s first graduate student. In 1972 to 1973, he was awarded the Fulbright Fellowship to study glass at the Venini Factory in Murano, Italy. He is married to Linda MacNeil, an artist also working with glass and metal, primarily in the studio or art jewelry field.

Career

1970s

Dailey worked at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston from 1973 until 1985; where he was the founder of the glass department. Additionally he taught in 1975 at Pilchuck Glass School in Stanwood, Washington. In the 1970s, Dailey continued to create illuminated sculpture and vase forms, and began to develop Vitrolite wall reliefs. In 1975, Dailey received a fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Center for Advanced Visual Studies in Cambridge where he co-taught the class Glass, Gas and Electricity with German artist Otto Piene. This experimental sculpture class emphasized and explored the phenomenon of illumination. In conjunction with the MIT Research Lab for Electronics, Dailey further studied the qualities of light and glass. From in 1978 to 2003, Dailey created 7 editions of pâte de verre works with Cristallerie Daum, a French decorative glass studio. Dailey's editions of work with studio Daum include, Les Danseurs, Le Vent, Le Joyeau, L’Eau, Le Vin, Le Soleil, and La Dame. In 1979, he received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship–Glass award.

1980s

During 1980, Dailey was awarded the Massachusetts Council on the Arts Fellowship–Glass. From 1984 until 1985, he worked as an independent designer and artist with Steuben Glass Works in Corning, New York. At the request of Steuben, Dailey produced sports-themed designs to be produced on vases, with one design, Ice Dancers, being produced. Additionally from 1984 to 1985, he worked as an independent designer and artist at Fenton Art Glass Company, in Williamstown, West Virginia. Together with Fenton Art Glass Company, Dailey worked on producing cast glass components of a low-relief mural. Over a period of 20 years, Dailey made 26 large scale murals, one of which was 16 ft by 24 ft, weighing over 4000 lb. With numerous assistants, Dailey also blew glass to create various works, notably, the mural Science Fiction Series (created 1985 to 1986).

1990s

2000s

2010 and onward

Public museum collections

United States

• Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California • de Young Museum and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, San Francisco, California • Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC • Boca Raton Museum of Art, Boca Raton, Florida • Imagine Museum, St. Petersburg, Florida • Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami • High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia • Illinois State University Galleries, Normal • Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indiana • Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky • Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton, Massachusetts • Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts • Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, Michigan • Flint Institute of Arts, Flint, Michigan • Henry Ford Museum, Detroit, Michigan • Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, New Hampshire • Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey • Morris Museum, Morristown, New Jersey • Museum of American Glass, Millville, New Jersey • 92nd Street Y, New York City, New York • Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York • Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York • Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, New York • Museum of Arts & Design, New York City, New York • Mint Museum, Charlotte, North Carolina • Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, Ohio • Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, Ohio • Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio • Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania • Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania • Providence Performing Arts Center, Providence, Rhode Island • Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga, Tennessee • Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas • Barry Art Museum, Old Dominion University Norfolk, Virginia • Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia • Pilchuck Glass Collection at City Centre and US Bank Centre, Seattle, Washington • Huntington Museum of Art, West Virginia • Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, Wisconsin • Racine Art Museum, Racine, Wisconsin

Europe

• Les Archives de la Cristallerie Daum, Nancy and Paris • Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Louvre, Paris • Museum August Kestner, Hannover • Museum of Contemporary Design and Applied Arts, Lausanne

Other locations

• National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia • Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Quebec, Canada • Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Ontario, Canada • National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Japan • Toyama Institute of Glass, Toyama City, Japan • Yokohama Museum, Yokohama, Japan • State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia

Gallery