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Catalog Data

Interviewee:
Ben Tré, Howard, 1949-2020  Search this
Interviewer:
Shea, Josephine, 1958-  Search this
Creator:
Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America  Search this
Names:
Appalachian Center for Craft  Search this
Brooklyn College -- Students  Search this
Brooklyn Technical High School (Brooklyn, New York, N.Y.)  Search this
Cristallerie Daum  Search this
Hadler/Rodriguez Gallery  Search this
Haystack Mountain School of Crafts -- Faculty  Search this
Missouri Valley College -- Students  Search this
Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America  Search this
Pilchuck School  Search this
Portland State University -- Students  Search this
Rhode Island School of Design -- Students  Search this
Venceremos Brigade  Search this
Aycock, Alice  Search this
Brychtová, Jaroslava, 1924-  Search this
Chihuly, Dale, 1941-  Search this
Dailey, Dan, 1947-  Search this
Hampson, Ferdinand  Search this
LaMonte, Karen, 1967-  Search this
Labino, Dominick  Search this
Libenský, Stanislav, 1921-2002  Search this
Littleton, Harvey K.  Search this
Onorato, Ronald J.  Search this
Parker, Anthony  Search this
Polander, Steve  Search this
Scanga, Italo, 1932-2001  Search this
Extent:
63 Pages (Transcript)
3 Sound discs (Sound recording (4 hr., 3 min.), digital, 2 5/8 in.)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Pages
Sound discs
Interviews
Sound recordings
Place:
Cuba -- Description and Travel
Europe -- description and travel
Date:
2007 July 7
Scope and Contents:
An interview of Howard Ben Tré conducted 2007 July 7, by Josephine Shea, for the Archives of American Art's Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America, at the artist's studio, in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.
Ben Tré speaks of his childhood in Rockaway Park, New York; his Polish immigrant father who was a woodworker and artist; inheriting a particular aesthetic and sense of hard work from his father; attending Brooklyn Technical High School to play football but not graduating; moving to Marshall, Missouri to attend Missouri Valley College for one year; attending Brooklyn College; becoming involved in Students for a Democratic Society, the antiwar movement and civil rights movement of the 1960s; traveling to Cuba as part of the first Venceremos Brigade to cut sugarcane in 1969; meeting his first wife, Gay, in Cuba and returning to New York with her; organizing a food co-op and community events in Brooklyn; moving to Portland, Oregon; working in construction for the city before going back to school to study veterinarian medicine at Portland State University; discovering the glass studio in a garage at Portland State; meeting Dale Chihuly and working at Pilchuck Glass School; utilizing the foundry skills learned from Brooklyn Technical High to work with glass in casting and cope and drag methods; his series Burial Boxes and the influence of ancient architecture and ceremonial Chinese bronzes; the rise of the studio glass movement as symptomatic of socio-political-economic times, not just the pioneering efforts of Harvey Littleton and Dominic Labino; traveling throughout Europe with Gay; visiting Stanislav Libenský and Jaraslava Brychtová in Czechoslovakia; visiting Dan Dailey at Cristallerie Daum in France; attending Rhode Island School of Design [RISD]; his first show at Hadler/Rodriguez Gallery in 1980; teaching experiences at Haystack Mountain School of Craft and Appalachian Center for Craft; building and installing an oven at Blenko Glass in Milton, West Virginia and at Super Glass in Brooklyn; working with Mold Melted Glass Studio in Pelechov, Czech Republic; the history of glass and early glass-working techniques; his many commissions, including sited public projects such as Post Office Square in Boston; the adoption of his name, Ben Tré; return visits to Cuba; working with RISD to create a winter study session in Havana; and his view of artists as artists, not defined by medium. Ben Tré also recalls Anthony Parker, Italo Scanga, Ron Onorato, Alice Aycock, Ferdinand Hampson, Steven Polander, Karen LaMonte, among others.
Biographical / Historical:
Howard Ben Tré (1949- 2020) was a glass artist from Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Josephine Shea is a curator from Grosse Pointe Park, Michigan.
General:
Originally recorded 3 sound discs. Reformatted in 2010 as 5 digital wav files. Duration is 4 hr., 3 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.
Occupation:
Glass artists  Search this
Topic:
Art commissions  Search this
Civil rights -- United States  Search this
Decorative arts  Search this
Peace movements  Search this
Glass art  Search this
Genre/Form:
Interviews
Sound recordings
Identifier:
AAA.bentre07
Archival Repository:
Archives of American Art
GUID:
https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/mw9d4615d25-e2f4-4f9f-8c8b-9587cb029302
EDAN-URL:
ead_collection:sova-aaa-bentre07