ANDREW WILCOX

Lecturn, 1980
Slumped sheet glass and steel structure
90cm x 90cm x 45cm

The glass designer Andrew Wilcox began as an undergraduate student in Glass at the University of Wolverhampton in the early 1980s after its transference from Stourbridge College.

He saw himself principally as a designer and maker and found support in the newly developing use of flat glass by artist designers like Danny Lane, in the products of the Fiam Glass Company in Italy which specialises in bent glass furniture for interiors, and in the continuing lineage of the sculptural use of flat glass within the work of Harry Seager who was a fine art tutor at Stourbridge College (Glass Routes Exhibition 2008).

In his ideas and work, Wilcox drew on the design language of the steam train, especially the cantilevered suspension systems which visually articulated the structures and strength of this 19th Century industrial machine. He used this inspiration for a simple design, in an industrial architecture and style, for a presentation lecturn which has often been used at the University of Wolverhampton on important formal occasions.

Many students have since followed in this path in design, architecture, interiors and sculptural applications using the industrial float glass to express an idea with both an interdependent sculptural and functional ‘core’ at its heart.

Stuart Garfoot 2008

Biography pdf

Andrew Wilcox filler