






Ann Wolff
Observations and Reflections
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|---|---|
| Editor(s) | Dorothea Kriele |
| Author(s) | Mark Gisbourne, Dorothea Kriele, Luc Muller |
| Design | Book Book, Berlin |
| Size | 27 x 30 cm |
| Cover | Clothbound hardcover |
| Pages | 272 |
| Illustrations | 131 |
| Language(s) | English |
| ISBN | 978-3-96912-102-3 |
“Art is coming from my inside. I am working as its servant.—I let it out not thinking too much—using my hands and gesture—choosing a material to put it on place. I do not use the art. It is using me.“
Ann Wolff (b. Lübeck, 1937; lives and works in Visby and Kyllaj, Sweden) has ranked among the most significant and most influential glass artists on the international scene for over five decades. Yet she has also worked in bronze, aluminum, nickel silver, and concrete, creating abstract as well as figurative sculptures, and produced a sizable oeuvre on paper: pastels, drawings, and fine art prints. Ann Wolff enrolled at the legendary Ulm School of Design in the 1950s to study visual communication with Otl Aicher. From 1993 until 1998, she was professor of “materials-related design” at the University of Fine Arts (HFBK) in Hamburg. Her works, which have garnered an array of prizes, have been shown in numerous solo exhibitions and are held by renowned public and private collections all over the world.
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