Larry Bell is among the most celebrated and influential artists to emerge from the Los Angeles art scene of the 1960s. Known foremost for his treatment of glass as a means to explore light and shadow, volume and color, Bell trained as a painter and has produced an expansive oeuvre spanning sculpture, installation, furniture design, and works on paper. “Although we tend to think of glass as a window,” he has said, “it is a solid liquid that has at once three distinctive qualities: It reflects light, it absorbs light, and it transmits light all at the same time.”

Bell’s use of industrial processes in his studios—located in Venice, California and Taos, New Mexico—demonstrates his unparalleled skill and dedication to each step of his sculptures’ fabrication. He manages his own machinery for vacuum-coating flat surfaces to create unique layers of iridescence, adapting a little-known technique (developed for optics and electronics) to craft an unprecedented body of work.