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NEW YORK — Preston Singletary (American, b. 1963-) was 19 when he began working in a glass factory making vases, bowls and the like. Admiring the works of Venetian glassmaker Napoleone Martinuzzi, Singletary literally carved a name for himself when he turned to his Tlingit heritage to create glass art that is rooted in tradition but has a modernist sensibility.
Starting with spare, organic forms that he blows, sculpts and then sandblasts, he applies Northwest Coast-style graphics informed by Tlingit mythologies and traditional designs to create decorative sculptures that reflect a contemporary view of his Native culture.
This loon rattle, made by Preston Singletary in 2013, achieved $16,000 plus the buyer’s premium in May 2023. Image courtesy of Rago Arts and Auction Center and LiveAuctioneers.
Birds have been a frequent motif in his art, and are emblematic of how he transforms traditional forms in works such as a blown and sand-carved loon rattle from 2013, which attained $16,000 plus the buyer’s premium in May 2023 at Rago Arts and Auction Center.
No treatise on the artist would be complete without exploring the significance of the raven for him, so it’s no surprise that the Smithsonian exhibition of his work currently touring the country is titled Preston Singletary: Raven and the Box of Daylight.
For the Tlingit people, the raven is an important figure, which the artist explained in an interview with Auction Central News. The Tlingit is a matrilineal society with the raven representing one moiety, or one of two groups significant to the tribal community, while the eagle stands for the other half. “The raven figures quite prominently in the mythologies, and Raven Steals the Sun is a well-known story when the world was in darkness at the beginning of time. The raven finds out about this old man who is hoarding these treasures in his clan house, so he devises this plan to get the daylight, and eventually, he releases the sun into the sky, and that is how the sun came into the world that way,” he said.
Singletary has created several versions of Raven Steals the Sun. A 2001 work with this theme made $14,000 plus the buyer’s premium in November 2017 at Wright.
An untitled glass feather sculpture, made with hot-sculpted and hand-carved glass, sold for $9,500 plus the buyer’s premium in September 2021 at Rago Arts and Auction Center. According to Rago’s catalog description, this work of art “shows abstracted Tlingit form line designs and a clear droplet to represent water. The feather started as part of his traveling exhibition ‘Raven and the Box of Daylight (2018–2023)’, where it originally appeared as a black Raven feather and later during the Dakota Access Pipeline protests, the series continued with a black droplet to represent oil.”
Suzanne Perrault, a partner and glass specialist at Rago Arts and Auction Center in Lambertville, New Jersey, said Singletary is extremely capable from a technical standpoint as well as a very compelling person and artist, to whom many collectors gravitate. While glass is not a new medium for Native artists, she explained his work was transformative in its approach. “It’s so wonderful, magical and appropriate in what he’s trying to say,” she said.
The market is currently strong for his works, and of course, the Smithsonian exhibition has played a role in that context, but Perrault noted that decorative arts have been on an uptick since 2020. “The show has definitely brought much light on him, and he is becoming better and better known and extremely collected,” she said, adding that people are also not just collecting something that is popular. “The quality of his work and the quality of his designs are wonderful, and collectors are sophisticated and understand that.”
As a contemporary artist, Singletary is still creating new work. Perrault said glass collectors really like to have the newest series of an artist’s work, but “I find a constant appetite for his earlier work as well. The more unique pieces and the larger and more extravagant pieces certainly bring a lot, no matter when they were made.”
Among his signature serieses are the pieces known as Tlingit ‘hats,’ which are inspired by traditional Tlingit hats. A blue Eagle Hat, decorated with striking symbols and dating to 2002, brought $8,500 plus the buyer’s premium in May 2021 at Brunk Auctions.
The totem pole is also emblematic for indigenous peoples, and Singletary has returned to this form repeatedly in both small and large versions that range from 18 inches to more than seven feet tall. A Bear Totem that he made in 2000, standing 18 ¾in tall, realized $8,000 plus the buyer’s premium in November 2017 at Wright.
Singletary creates striking works populated with both human and animal spirits and in some cases, the metamorphosis between the two is especially fluid, as in works such as Eagle Drum, which earned $6,500 plus the buyer’s premium in January 2019 at Rago Arts and Auction Center.
Glass artist Preston Singletary at work at Pilchuck Glass School. Image courtesy of Pilchuck Glass School.
Singletary has been thinking a lot about the raven lately. The artist recently worked with a Tlingit mythologist to dig deeper into ancient metaphors and symbolism, and what he learned from that process informs some of his newest work. “He gave me a way of looking at the mythologies in a totally different way … and that inspires new directions,” he said. “So I am thinking about new mythologies and what raven might be up to now. If the culture hadn’t been kind of put on hold or interrupted, then that creativity would have continued to grow and change. I am thinking at this point raven might be trying to battle climate change or is trying to protect the missing and murdered indigenous women. I am trying to bring those kinds of stories to light and make art that is inspired by that and creating new mythologies.”
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