Jeremy Langford - Biography

Jeremy Langford (born London, England, 1956), British/Israeli glass designer and sculptor known for his monumental stacked glass sculptures. His family's original name was Lelyveld, natives of the Netherlands, and Langford is related to Joseph Lelyveld, an editor of The New York Times, and to civil rights activist Rabbi Arthur Lelyveld. Jeremy Langford’s great grandfather was a royal court entertainer in the U.K. (specializing in whistling), serving the court of King Edward VII and, after whose death, opened the soap factory Sloman’s. Langford’s father, Barry Langford (b. London, England, 1926) was the BBC producer and director who created the first pop-music shows for the network and directed many, including The Tom Jones Show. He also worked with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones discovered David Bowie and briefly managed Deep Purple.

Biography

Jeremy Langford moved from Great Britain to Melbourne, Australia, when he was 13, and began dabbling in glass when he was 15. At first, he melted bottles in an old ceramic kiln, creating from the raw material his first stained glass works. At 18, he returned to the U.K. to study at The London Film School and met a traditional English glass artist who taught him glassmaking techniques; thus, he acquired the foundation for his future work. At this time he also studied naturopathic medicine and Jewish mysticism and later homeopathy.

He has stated, “Just as a musician trains in classical music, he can then diversify and enter any musical field—even heavy rock. I feel that, with such a training in traditional glassmaking techniques, I can stretch the limits and even go wildly off the established path of traditional glass working.”

With a studio in London in the mid-1970s, he divided his time between the U.K. and Israel and continued developing his glassmaking skills. It was at this time he first started experimenting in stacked sculptural glass, a skill he has developed further over the last few years in some of his monumental glass sculptures around the world.

He married Yael Langford (née Itach), a scientist who specialized in quantum chemistry, and particularly in the relationship between brainwaves and consciousness. Yael passed away on September 15, 2009. At the time of her passing the couple were involved in a beta project concerning the connection between art, brainwaves and consciousness.

He is currently working on projects in various U.S. cities. They include three monumental sculptures in the The Trump International Towers at Sunny Isles Beach, Florida, and a sculpture in the Miami Four Seasons Hotel.

His glass work is to be included in a Holocaust Memorial in Beverly Hills, California, and a number of residences in Los Angeles and New York City. Other work has been installed in numerous synagogues.

Langford’s best-known project is The Chain of Generations Center, a 2006 heritage center in Jerusalem that features a large collection of glass sculptures documenting the history of the Jewish people from Biblical times until the present. The project, which recently received the prestigious Thea Award from the Themed Entertainment Association, extends down into the catacombs at the edge of the Kotel (or Western Wall) in Jerusalem. Partly funded by media magnate Mortimer Zuckerman, the installation features uniquely carved and etched layers of plate glass, and required almost 150 tons of glass to create. When archeologists were excavating the space for the Langford installation, they first discovered a fully preserved ritual bath from the Second Temple period, located beneath the Roman-times level. They then discovered a portion of a Wall from the First Temple (or the Solomon's Temple), completed in about 950 BCE but destroyed by the Babylonians approximately 360 years later.

On the connection between his art and spirituality, Langford compares the physical material of glass to the state of seeking a spiritual dimension. “As alchemists symbolically sought to change a base metal into a precious material—gold—so working in glass mirrors this process. Glass starts as sand, a lifeless substance. Through a process of heat and pressure, it becomes a bright, light-transmitting, elastic material—transparent but with defined boundaries and borders.”

Works

Projects are included in:

• Supreme Court Building, Jerusalem
• Residence of the President of Israel, Jerusalem
• Western Wall Tunnels, Old City, Jerusalem
• Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel
• Ben Gurion Airport, Tel Aviv
• British Museum, London
• Hilton Hotel, Mayfair, London
• Los Angeles Temple Etz Chaim Los Angeles
• Trump International Towers, Sunny Isles Beach, Florida
• Four Seasons Hotel, Miami

Bibliography

• Mel Byars, “A Letter from Jerusalem: The Chain of Generations,” Art+Auction, February 2006.
• Jeremy Langford, “Chambers of History,” ‘’Faith & Form, The Interfaith Journal on Religion, Art and Architecture’’, vol. 39, no. 2, 2006. | ISBN 00147001
• “The New Chain of Generations in Jerusalem,” ‘’Neue Glas/New Glass’’, summer 2006 (2/06). USPS no. 011-475
• “Commissions: Jeremy Langford, the Western Wall Glass Sculpture Project, Jerusalem, Israel,” ‘’Sculpture’’, vol. 25, no. 7, September 2006.

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External links

• Jeremy Langford's Website
• The Western Wall Glass Sculpture Project, Jerusalem