Andrews Dirk Copier's Unica designs on display at Washington County Museum of Fine Arts

Andries Dirk Copier (Dutch, 1901-1991) was a preeminent art glass designer of the early 20th century, whose “Unica” (one-of-a-kind) blown-glass creations can be found in worldwide collections.

Copier’s long career as the lead designer at the Leerdam Glassworks was distinguished by his unique vision for blown glass creations as well as his modernist designs for manufactured, utilitarian glassware. His award-winning “Gilde (Guild) Glass” wine goblet is still in production today.

Two beautiful “Unica” glass works, a large bowl and a vase, are now on view at the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts. Both Unica works were donated to the museum.

The Washington County Museum of Fine Arts has lunched a series of small exhibitions that will feature recent accessions given to the museum. In additional to Copier’s “Unica” glass there is art glass by Daum of Nancy, France; and Weller of Zanesville, Ohio; paintings by Larry Rodda (of Snallygaster fame), a Richard Crozier landscape of Charlottesville, Va.; a Ruth Miller still life; a seaside landscape by French artist André-Charles Nauleau; and two Baltimore scene paintings, one by Jacob Glushakow and one by Aaron Sopher.

Copier’s pieces were was purchased in the Netherlands by the original owners after WWII in celebration and commemoration of peace. It became an iconic family treasure; the parents emigrated to America after the war and raised their family in a time of prosperity and peace. The vase was gifted by a glass collector who has added to the MFA’s collections over more than a decade.

The son of a glassmaker, Copier began work at the Leerdam Glassworks at the age of 13, and was soon identified as a unique talent.

In post-WWI Europe, advertising was a rapidly growing and dynamic area of business. The advent of business trademarks characterized the 1920s advertising industry and was marked by designers’ use of bold type and color, symbolic images, simple text design, robust and short messages.

The glassworks at Leerdam, outside of Rotterdam, began production in 1765, initially making decanters and glasses, tableware, ornaments and containers, using traditional designs that were like those made elsewhere in the Netherlands.

By the early 20th century, Leerdam became distinctive and well-known for rejecting the popular art nouveau style in favor of modernist ideas. Under the influence of the De Stijl aesthetic developed by Piet Mondrian, Leerdam embraced simple, logical, and functional design. Led by Leerdam Manager, P.M. Cochius, talented architects and designers developed concepts for everyday functional glassware.

As Leerdam hastened to join the advancing modernism, young Copier was sent by Cochius for further studies in typography in Utrecht, returning to Leerdam to assist with exhibition, shop displays and publications.

Later he was sent for further study at the Rotterdam Arts Academy under Dutch graphic designer Jacques “Jacob” Jongert (1883-1942), who famously said, “Advertising is all-powerful; it adorns the world with fresh raiment.”

Copier’s academic training culminated in an exhibition of his handmade work at Boyman’s Museum (now Museum Boijmans-van Beuningen), Rotterdam, in 1923. With his apprenticeship and training complete, Copier was put in charge of the design of Leerdam’s advertising and publishing. In 1922-23, he also began service as the leading Leerdam glass designer.

Copier’s work at Leerdam spanned five decades, from 1914 to 1971. During his long career, Copier developed designs for mass-produced glassware targeting three types of consumers: high, middle and low incomes. The Crystal and Sonoor trademark products aimed for the high and middle income, while the Household pressed glass (H-collectie) for use in the kitchen reached the lower income markets.

In 1934, Copier created the Rondo crystal decanter, which led to a stylistic shift in Leerdam’s crystal products. Distinguished by the completely round ball which acted as its stopper, the Rondo style became known as ‘dikwandig’ (thick-walled) and brought Copier’s work to the notice of a newly emerging upper middle class.

In 1930, Copier designed the Gilde (Guild) glass wine goblet, initially made by a blown-glass process. It became immediately popular. After WWII, Leerdam re-launched the design using a manufacturing process, presented it through the National Association for the Wine Trades, and it won recognition at the Milan Triennale of 1960. In 1987, Copier was awarded the David Roell Prize for the Gilde glass and his other contributions to industrial design.

Copier partnered with master glass blower, Gerrit Vroegh, to realize his design concepts for the Unica works. Copier was known for transforming universal forms — the vase and the bowl — achieving extraordinary innovative effects by such methods as the use of tin crackle, enamel powders, free-formed bubbles and ribs, and the creation of bulging knob-like elements on the surfaces of the objects.

In a particularly surrealistic Unica vase, Copier formed glass elements shaped like human eyes that were embedded into and interspersed throughout the glass fabric. It is estimated that some 18,000 Unica pieces were made during Copier’s 50-year tenure at Leerdam.

Because Copier’s Unica works were collectable as art objects, the Leerdam Glass Factory’s reputation and image was enhanced in the marketplace. These objects received a silver medal at the Paris Art Deco exposition, and are now regarded as precursors of the Studio Glass Movement that was spearheaded by American Harvey Littleton in the 1950s. Leerdam Serica was the name given to limited edition designs usually derived from Unica designs.

During WWII, Leerdam produced very few new designs, but the factory was unharmed by bombings. Following the war, and with help from the Marshall Plan, Leerdam updated its manufacturing processes and expanded its market into the United States.

In 1940, Copier worked to establish the Glass School at Leerdam, which trained new designers, including the notable Floris Meydam. As Leerdam moved more into manufactured glass, independent art glass studios became the locations for production of hand-blown art glass objects. However, Copier still created more than 250 Unica works at Leerdam during the 1960s.

Copier left Leerdam in 1971 and designed his art glass works at small glass ovens.

His work was presented in several museum exhibitions, and he traveled to engage colleagues at factories in Italy, Germany, the U.S., Czechoslovakia and Scandinavia.

Active into his 80s, Copier died in 1991 at the age of 90.

Rebecca Massie Lane is director of the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts.