Jeff Zimmerman

Born in Fort Knox, Kentucky in 1968, glass artist Jeff Zimmerman grew up on the Anderson Ranch Arts Center grounds in rural Colorado. This early exposure to nature remains a potent force in his work, particularly in his glass lighting and sculptures, which often appear to hover between solid and liquid states.

Zimmerman's training was wide-reaching and interdisciplinary; he took his first glass-blowing class in 1988, while pursuing an anthropology degree in Santa Barbara, California. He went on to learn the classical Venetian approach to glass blowing while earning his BFA from the Appalachian Center for Craft in Tennessee. Zimmerman spent his college summers at the Pilchuk School in Seattle, where he came into contact with Italian glass masters Lino Tagliapietro and Pino Signoretto. He later trained as a master glass blower at C.I.R.V.A. in Marseille, France, and traveled through Europe and Africa, working with artists like Gaetano Pesce, Robert Wilson, and Robert Morris.

Prior to graduating, Zimmerman joined an experimental glass-blowing collective called the B Team. Their punk rock-inspired performances—in one, molten glass poured down onto steel umbrellas over participating artists—earned the group the Tiffany and BESSY awards, and reinforced the notion of glass as a contemporary art medium. Today his award-winning works are presented in galleries and museums around the world.