AN ARTIST IN BROKEN GLASS

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 255, 24 July 1937, Page 6 (Supplement)

AN ARTIST IN BROKEN GLASS

A New Mosaic

Three years ago, Greek artist Jean Varda, starving and down-and-out, picked up a piece of broken glass, and bared a wrist artery.

To-day that same piece -of glass forms the centre of a beautiful new form of mosaic work hung on the walls of a fashionable Mayfair home.

For, just in time, Jean Varda realised the possibilities of old glass. Instead vf using it to finish his life he made it a beginning. Inspired and excited, he hunted out all the old glass in his little fiat. He visited the Caledonian Market and exchanged his few possessions for cracked mirrors and window panes. He asked all his friends for pieces of glass they did not want. Then, shutting himself up in his studio, he began to work out his idea. Slowly an intricate design was forced from the broken pieces of glass, set in a cement cast, and coloured. The result was something new in the art world. The picture was hailed as the work of a genius. Orders for more and more came pouring in. An exhibition was arranged. The original glass mosaic was sold to ,a well-known London hostess. Friends saw it hanging on her diningroom wall and gave further commissions.

Jean Varda became the latest thing. A tonic. A breath of fresh air in a world grown a little weary of even the most surrealistic of pictures. And now Jean Varda need no longer work with bits of unwanted glass—unless he is so inclined. At last he can execute his pictures in whatever medium he chooses.