Stephen Eskilson

Stephen Eskilson is Professor of Art History at Eastern Illinois University.  Eskilson received his PhD in 1995 from Brown University. Aside from his book The Age of Glass (Bloomsbury 2017), he is the author of Graphic Design: A New History (Yale UP 3rd edition 2019) and the forthcoming Digital Design: A History (Princeton UP 2023).

Presentation title: The Age of Glass – Affirmation and Celebration

Abstract:  Prof. Eskilson will explore how glass came to play such a prominent role in the contemporary design world. His research traces the rise of glass back to the Bauhaus, the German art school founded by Walter Gropius in the aftermath of World War I. As Bauhaus ideals were reimagined in later decades, glass gradually came to symbolize the modern movement in a metaphorical sense while also literally spreading across the design landscape.