Dominick Labino-Glassmaker (1910 – 1987)
“In 1963, after working for thirty-five years in the glass industry, Dominick Labino began blowing glass for the first time. He brought to his work in art glass the skills and experience he had gained in glass research and technology. His free-form designs, swirled colors, and carefully planned air sculptures constituted a unique and inventive approach to paperweight making.
Born in Pennsylvania, Labino studied at the Carnegie Institute of Technology and the School of Design of the Toledo Museum of Art. He retired in 1963 as the Vice President and Director of Research and Development at Johns-Manville Fiber Glass, Inc. He also held sixty patents on glass compositions and processes.
Examples of Labino’s work are owned by more than twenty museums in the U.S. and Europe, including the Smithsonian Institution, The Corning Museum of Glass, and the Museum of Contemporary Crafts. To his credit are twenty-two one-man shows, including a retrospective at The Corning Museum in 1970. He also received several awards, including the 1976 Glass Art Society Award for his contribution to the field of glass and to glass as a medium. Labino, who died in 1987, influenced an entire generation of glass artists.”
,br>information from The Art of the Paperweight.