Prof. Clare Twomey will present her work ‘The Invisible Vase’ at The Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, USA.

The Portland Vase: Mania and Muse, a comprehensive exhibition that delves into the fascinating journey of the ways a single Classical vase rose to legendary status, shaping and influencing art and commerce across time and space. “This exhibition seeks to uncover the reasons why this ancient vase looms so large in our collective memory as well as how it continues to be vital in culture today.  Clare Twomey’s artwork The Invisible Vase is formed by the cobweb of lines that maps every break of the restored Portland Vase. The world renowned Portland Vase sits in the care of the British Museum, an amphora in translucent dark cobalt blue and opaque white cameo glass. Later famously copied by Josiah Wedgwood in 1786. The Portland Vase entered the British Museum in 1810 the 4th Duke of Portland deposited it in the British Museum for safe-keeping, where it went on public display. Thirty-five years later, at 3.45 p.m. on 7 February 1845, a young man named William Lloyd, picked up a sculpted stone in the room where the Vase was displayed and smashed both it and the showcase into fragments. Twomey’s artwork made in response to the glass vessel is formed of the mending lines of the broken vase. This delicate web of lines is accurate to the shape of the vase and to every line of mending of the vase thanks to being able to make the first 3D scan earlier this year and the incredible access to the restoration department and their records. The Invisible Vase  illuminates an untold history of the impact point of the vase and also it tell us of the absolute wonder of this object not only by its form but by the human endeavour to share its knowledge and history for the public into the future. Whilst studying and researching the vase it has become evident how much skill, labour and care have gone into the keeping of the vase for the public. The final artwork I have made is loyal both to the scale of the vase to the millimetre, its restoration and to the legacy of the Wedgwood Portland made of Blue Jasper clay to celebrate the moment of its arrival in the UK.