Peter Minson is passionate about glass. He is a third-generation glassblower based in Binalong, NSW. Peter left school at sixteen to work full time with his father in their family business creating scientific equipment. He learnt about glass and Lampwork, which involves making everything by hand using a small bench burner, glass tubing and solid rods, and eventually was managing the business.
In 1976 Peter left the family business to establish his own, wanting to learn more about different functional and artistic glasswork. His early 1970’s glass work is in the Australian National Gallery.
Peter studied in Sweden at the Orrefors Glass School and in Kosta Boda Glass before returning to Australia to continue this line of work in South Australia. He then moved to Canberra where he established his workshop in Binalong, NSW, with Lampwork as his major focus. In 1995 Peter’s Churchill Fellowship enabled him to travel to Germany and the USA to study glass lampworking in depth at a high level to improve knowledge both technically and aesthetically.
Peter studied at the Canberra School of Arts for three years. He established the Lampworking Department, at RMIT University, Melbourne and assisted in establishing the Lampworking department in Sydney School of Art. Peter has taught classes at the ANU School of Art and RMIT University. He also co-taught the Lampwork course preceding the Ausglass Conference in 1997. Peter continues to assist others to establish their own workshops and continues to teach all aspects of glass.
Peter has held a number of national exhibitions, including at Kirra Galleries, the Glass Artist Gallery and Craft ACT, and internationally in the US, Sweden and Japan. Since 1981 when Peter was invited to exhibit at the National Art Glass Gallery in Wagga Wagga, his work has been exhibited and consistently added to their National Glass Collection. In September 2019 Peter held a retrospective exhibition titled “Six Decades in Reflection”, resulting in more of his work being added to the Collection.
Peter held another retrospective in February 2022 at Craft ACT, entitled “You Get A Rhythm About It”. Craft ACT commissioned Arts Writer Nola Anderson to write an essay, under the same title, to cover areas of Peter’s “Glass Life” not commonly known, where he had worked with and helped other artists develop their work for exhibition. The ACT Legislative Assembly purchased his work to add to their Collection.
You can read Peter Minson’s Churchill Fellowship report here.