The Norfolk museum already had a national reputation for glass art, and its collection just got even bigger.

The Barry Art Museum at Old Dominion University was recently gifted nearly 200 works of modern and contemporary glass art appraised at $9.3 million, said Robert Wojtowicz, the museum’s interim executive director. The works will be displayed in renovated galleries when the museum reopens in 2027 at the conclusion of its $25 million expansion project, which began this year.

Nocturne 6, a glass cast by Karen LaMonte. (Martin Polak/Barry Art Museum at Old Dominion University)
The collection was donated by Myra and Harold Weiss, medical doctors who live in the suburbs of Detroit. The couple began collecting glass art in the early 1990s. They learned about the Barry from a close friend, glass artist Karen LaMonte, and despite interest from other museums, they chose the Barry because of its strong glass focus and proximity to other institutions — the Chrysler Museum of Art and the Perry Glass Studio — with similar interests.

The museum’s expansion also meant a significant portion of the Weisses’ collection would be on display, a major selling point.

“We don’t want our art to be in a museum’s storage,” Harold Weiss said in the news release.

Dress 8 Impression, a glass cast by Karen LaMonte. (Gabriel Urbanek/ Barry Art Museum at Old Dominion University)

The donated collection includes glass sculptures by LaMonte and married Czech artists Stanislav Libenský and Jaroslava Brychtová. At the time the Czech couple began sculpting glass, they were living under a communist government that restricted their rights to create a home art studio.

The couple collaborated with glass foundries, which led to industrial-size pieces that most artist studios wouldn’t be prepared to handle, Wojtowicz said. One sculpture by the Czech team measures 9 feet by 8 feet.

Colin Warren-Hicks, 919-818-8139, colin.warrenhicks@virginiamedia.com

https://www.dailypress.com/2025/11/09/glass-art-barry-museum-odu/