Jeremy Langford - Personal Life & Professional Career

Personal Life & Professional Career

Jeremy Langford was born in London, England in 1956. He moved from London to Melbourne, Australia at the age of 13. His first experiences in experimenting with glasswork followed two year later, melting bottles in an old ceramic kiln, using the raw material to make his first stained glass works. He moved back to the U.K. at the age of 18 and became a glass artist apprentice where he acquired the glassmaking techniques and skill sets he would use as a foundation in his later artistic works. Langford’s belief is that, “Just as a musician trains in classical music, he can then diversify and enter any musical field… I feel that, with such training in traditional glassmaking techniques, I can stretch the limits and even go wildly off the established path of traditional glass working.”

Establishing himself with a studio in London in the mid 1970s, his time was divided between the U.K. and Israel while he further developed his glassmaking skills. During this time he began experimenting with stacked sculptural glass. Finely honing this skill, Langford has used it in the past few years in the creation of several monumental glass sculptures around the world.

Langford’s projects are featured in a number of US cities. They include three monumental sculptures in the Trump International Towers at Sunny Isles Beach, Florida and a sculpture in the Miami Four Seasons Hotel. His glasswork can also be seen at a number of public buildings in New York, California, and a number of private residences in Los Angeles and New York City. Other artistic works have been installed in several synagogues.

Among the best-known of Jeremy Langford’s project is the Chain of Generations Center, a heritage center at Jerusalem’s Western Wall created in 2006. Extending down into the catacombs at the edge of the Western Wall, the site features a large and dramatic collection of glass sculptures that document the history of the Jewish people from biblical times to the present day. The project was partly funded by Mortimer Zuckerman, US media magnate. The sculptural glasswork there features uniquely carved and etched layers of plate glass, which required nearly 150 tons of glass to create. The project recently received the illustrious Thea Award from the Themed Entertainment Association as the “Outstanding Heritage Center worldwide 2008”. While archaeologists were excavating the site for the project, a fully preserved mikvah (ritual bath) from the Second Temple period was discovered beneath the Roman Times level. Archaeologists also discovered a portion of a wall from the First Temple period during the time of King Solomon, estimated to have been completed in 950 BCE but was destroyed by the Babylonians approximately 360 years later.

Recently, Langford has focused on making studio glass, creating sculptures for private collectors and art museums. Beyond his work in architectural glass and studio art sculpture, Langford is also widely known for his work in the creation of glass art and stained glass for synagogues.

Langford sees a connection between his art and spirituality, and compares the physical material of glass to the state of seeking a spiritual dimension: “As a person on a spiritual path seeks to refine themselves, working in glass mirrors this process. Glass begins as sand, a lifeless substance. Though a process of heat and pressure, it becomes a bright, light-transmitting, elastic material; transparent but with defined boundaries and borders.”