Danny Lane

Danny Lane (born 27 January 1955) is an American artist, best known for his glass and steel sculpture.

Lane is also known for his work in art furniture and contemporary design.

He lives and works in London.

Lane was born in 1955 in Urbana, Illinois, in the United States.

During his childhood, his family moved many times, from Virginia to West Germany, New York City’s Greenwich Village and finally Baltimore.

Travelling through Europe exposed Lane to a wide range of art and architecture.

Lane moved to the United Kingdom in 1975 to begin an apprenticeship with stained-glass artist Patrick Reyntiens at Burleighfield House in Buckinghamshire, and then Ruskin School, Oxford, before attending a foundation course in Fine Art at the Byam Shaw School of Art in London.

Reyntiens recommended Lane to the Central School of Art & Design, London, where he trained as a painter under artist Cecil Collins, whose personal philosophy and method of teaching influenced Lane's own creative development.

As well as teaching Lane how to be analytical about materials, Collins introduced him to concepts of mysticism and the spirituality of art.

Lane came to attention in the 1980s through his art furniture.

Though now well known for his large-scale public artworks, Lane was first known in the 1980s for the construction of his design objects and art furniture.

These objects often have functional names, but frequently venture into abstraction.

Lane then began developing objects using industrial float glass, and by the mid-1980s he was experimenting with assemblage, uniting found materials in his furniture.

During this period in the early 1980s, Lane met designer Ron Arad.

During these early years, he developed a series of editioned works and by the end of the 1980s, Lane had exhibited work at solo shows in London, Paris and Milan.

Lane's first public commissions occurred in the late 1980s, including Stacked Glass Fountain (1986) in Miami, Florida and etched glass screens and a wall sculpture for the British Embassy in Helsinki in 1989, both of which contained elements that provided the basis for later work.

In 1981, Lane established his first studio in London's East End, Hackney, where time spent in local workshops gave him a respect for traditional craftsmanship, and saw him begin to accumulate stacks of metal, glass and wood with which to experiment.

Within a year of their meeting, he was offered his first solo exhibition at Arad's influential shop One Off in Shelton Street, London, where he showed several works including Romeo and Juliet table (1984).

In 1984 Lane exhibited abroad for the first time at the International Furniture Fair in Milan, making folding glass screens with sandblasted and acid etched drawings.

Best known from this period, Lane's Etruscan Chair (1985) is featured in several museum collections.

The piece was constructed from inch-thick float glass, industrial nuts and bolts, forged stainless steel and aluminium.

In 1986, Lane began to exhibit work at London's Themes & Variations gallery.

Another work from this period is Angaraib (1987), which takes its name from the traditional Sudanese rope-bed, united with the concept of the North American Indian 'horse travois'.

The work is constructed from the branches of a storm damaged London plane tree, bound together with hemp rope, on top of which sits a raft of glass.

By 1989, Lane's focus on larger-scale works required him to move to his current studio and gallery where he is still based today, a 10,000 square foot converted factory in Willesden, West London.

The studio employs a team of technicians and is equipped with glass furnaces, kilns, offices and an exhibition space.

From 1989 to 1990, Lane travelled to Tokyo and Osaka in Japan to produce new commissions.

He moved into large-scale public sculpture in the 1990s, being responsible in 2006 for Borealis, believed to be the largest glass sculpture in the world.

Lane's work can be found in public spaces and collections worldwide, such as London Underground, Canary Wharf Plc, Victoria & Albert Museum, Microsoft, British Land Plc, Rolex UK, British Airports Authority, Swire Properties (Hong Kong) and General Motors (USA).

To construct his glass sculptures, Lane exploits the strength of glass under compression and its qualities of luminosity.

This approach expands on traditional methods of glass and metal smithing and has resulted in a varied body of work, from monumental structures made from industrial float glass and steel, to coloured glass sculpture, casts and design objects.

In the early 1990s, Lane's focus shifted to making large-scale glass and steel sculptures for public and corporate spaces.

Further work followed during 1991-93 across China, Spain and London and Edinburgh in the United Kingdom, including Wave Wall (1993) for Dalian Glass Company, China, which saw Lane experimenting with curving glass walls that refract light.

In 1994, Lane was commissioned by the Victoria & Albert Museum, London to create a glass balustrade for their new Glass Gallery.

The balustrade is made up of 140 pillars of cut glass, lining the stairs leading to a glass mezzanine floor

In 1996, the steel and glass sculpture Man Catching A Star was commissioned for the Wembley Stadium approach in London.

More public sculptures followed over subsequent years, including glass water sculptures in China and India, Pantheon for Henley Festival in 2000 and The Presence of Seven (2002) in Meadville, Pennsylvania.

It was constructed from 2000 narrow strips of glass, which are locked into place by their own weight.

In 2003, Lane made Parting of the Waves for Canary Wharf Plc, East London.

The work is a 4m high, 10m long ribbon of glass running each side of the north entrance.