Size: 1.75″ x 3.25″. Condition: Museum quality with no flaws. Includes gallery certificate of authenticity. Please review our 100% feedback. Paul Joseph Stankard , considered the father of modern glass. Was born April 7, 1943 as the second of nine children in an Irish. He lived in North Attleboro. In his early years. He graduated from Salem County Vocational Technical Institute now Salem Community College. With a degree in Scientific Glassblowing. For the first ten years of his work career, he worked as a glassblower. For various chemical laboratories. Stankard, whose driving desire was to “be on the creative side and do what he loves”, started producing glass paperweights in his garage while working in the industry to support his growing family. It was when Stankard displayed his early paperweights at a craft exhibit on the boardwalk of Atlantic City. An internationally respected art dealer, saw his work and sponsored Stankard financially to move full-time into making glass art. In the early 1960s, paperweights made by other American paperweight makers showcased brightly colored “crafty” type flowers that were not botanically accurate. Stankard labored to make his glass floral designs look more natural and botanically lifelike. His glass flowers were so real looking that many people mistakenly thought that he had found a way to encase actual flowers in glass. Soon thereafter, paperweight makers (mostly American) were following Stankard’s lead. Stankard, who is now an internationally acclaimed artist, is largely credited with changing the status of glass paperweights from that of “craft” to that of “fine art”. Among many other museums, Stankard’s work is exhibited at The Smithsonian Institution. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Musée des Arts Décoratifs. And the Musée du Louvre. The Victoria & Albert Museum. The Corning Museum of Glass. And Cultural Center in Millville. Stankard chronicles his early struggles with. Which made him score poorly on tests because he couldn’t read the test questions. His high school transcripts showed him graduating at the very bottom of his class with a low IQ. In the book, Stankard describes the pressure and stigma of being labeled a slow learner by an educational system that at the time was not aware of dyslexia and the steps he took to overcome his low self-esteem and learning disabilities to become one of the foremost artists of his generation. The item “Paul Stankard Original Glass Paperweight Rare Early Piece 1986 Best Offer” is in sale since Thursday, November 16, 2017. This item is in the category “Pottery & Glass\Glass\Art Glass\Paperweights”. The seller is “modern_artifact” and is located in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This item can be shipped worldwide.