Glass Art Company LIULI Celebrates U.S. Expansion With Second Anniversary in San Francisco

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May 19, 2010, 02:26 ET

SAN FRANCISCO, May 19 /PRNewswire/ -- This spring LIULI, the Shanghai based glass art company specializing in pate-de-verre methods of glass sculpting, celebrates its continued growth in the United States with the two year anniversary of LIULI Gallery San Francisco. Since the gallery's opening in 2008, LIULI has opened two additional retail locations in New York and Los Angeles, and the collections have been received with enthusiasm by U.S. audiences.

Founded by notable artist and former Taiwanese film star Loretta Hui-Shan Yang in 1987, LIULI has established exhibits around the globe and boasts more than 60 galleries in Asia as well as an online retail site. In addition to LIULI's heirloom-quality sculptural art pieces known as LIULI Collection, the company also offers LIULI Living which includes first-of-its-kind stemware and serveware pieces, and LIULI Plux, a line of jewelry and accessories featuring exquisite details in luminous glass. Yang, who remains deeply involved with the company as its Creative Director, insists that the design of each LIULI piece strives to reflect benevolence, hope, and a distinctive story.

"I aspire to create works of art that are of value and significance to society and to contribute positively to the community," says Yang. "We are thrilled that our artistry and the ancient Chinese techniques that define LIULI have been embraced and enjoyed by customers in the U.S."

LIULI's use of pate-de-verre glass casting, which dates back to the Western Han Dynasty of the 3rd century BC, allows for exquisite detail and visually stimulating features to appear in each vibrantly colored creation. The meticulous twelve step process includes pouring crushed and fragmented glass into a handcrafted mould and then firing – a process that lasts from six to eight weeks. The results are the intensely captivating and rich glass forms of LIULI. Designed to express and reflect upon China's storied past, the collections resonate with Asian history.

Loretta Hui-Shan Yang will be visiting the stateside galleries this fall and will be teaching a master course at the Corning Museum of Glass in New York from September 5 through September 12.

Loretta Hui-Shan Yang
Co-founder and Creative Director
Formerly a renowned actress in Taiwan in the 1970's with critically-acclaimed films such as "The Young Runaway" and "Kuei-Mei, A Woman", Loretta Hui-Shan Yang left the film industry at the height of her career to devote herself to the art of Liuli, ancient Chinese glass sculpting and design. A graduate of both Providence University in Taiwan and the New York Expirimental Glass Workshop, Yang is now a consulting professor for the Academy of Arts & Design at Tsinghua University in Beijing, and an honorary professor for Notojima Museum in Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan. Over the last two decades, Yang has followed a spiritual quest to revive fine art techniques used in the Shang and Zhou Dynasties and has distinguished herself as the most influential Chinese glass artist in the international art realm.