Featured photo above: (Back row) Ray Huang (third from right), Kellyn Guzman (second from right) and eight other students joined the tour led by the Glass House educator Dr. Sarah Churchill (front row, first from left).
Tucked away in a town near the state line where Connecticut meets New York is an iconic structure where modern art meets minimalism, and our art history students had a chance last month to immerse themselves in the expansive site where this unique property stands.
Ten students took part in the October 10 field trip to the Glass House in New Canaan, CT, about a one-and-a-half hour’s drive from campus.
One of the participants was art history senior major Ray Huang ’26. “Having learned about Frank Lloyd Wright and the various architectural movements both in the US and abroad, I was curious to learn more about how other architects in the country contributed to the idea of American modernism in architecture,” Huang said.
Designed by Philip Johnson (1906-2005) and completed in 1949, the Glass House was a private residence of the architect for over half a century.
The Glass House educator Dr. Sarah Churchill, who specializes in modern and contemporary art and visual culture, led the two-hour tour which Huang thoroughly enjoyed and found to have “the perfect length and a good amount of engagement.”
“Indisputably, the Glass House itself left a strong impression in me,” Huang said, adding that the house “harbors some very interesting dualities.”
The house presented itself as a site of vulnerability but also mythical strength, in the sense that the structure both pronounces its own peculiarities proudly by exposing the interior space to the exterior, but also hides its construction by removing the walls that would have served as supports for the building’s own weight.
– Art history major Ray Huang ’26
Facing the glass pavilion and a short grassy distance away is the Brick House, which was both a guest house and a retreat for Johnson and his partner David Whitney until their deaths in 2005.
The students also visited the semi-underground Painting Gallery, which displays large-scale modern paintings that Johnson and Whitney collected throughout their lives.
The very first stop of the students’ tour was to examine American artist Donald Judd’s first concrete sculpture, Untitled, completed in 1971.
“I was deeply moved by the opportunity to see some of (American painter and sculptor) Frank Stella‘s early variations on the shaped canvas (in the Painting Gallery), and was pleasantly surprised to see the sculpture by Donald Judd which was tailored to the topology of the Johnson property,” art history junior major Kellyn Guzman ’27 said.
The Glass House field trip was one of the events organized by the Art History Majors Committee. Upcoming events include:
- Graduate School Alumni Panel, November 14, 12 p.m. to 1 p.m., Boger 112.
- A Viewing of Latin and South American Artworks, November 20, 12 p.m., DAC Study Room, Olin Library lower level.
- ARHA Majors / Minors Holiday Lunch, December 11, 12 p.m. to 1 p.m., Boger 114.
We hope to see you there!