Howard Ben Tré

Personal life and education

Howard Ben Tré was born May 13, 1949, in Brooklyn, New York. In the 1960s he attended Brooklyn College for two years

Howard Ben Tré died June 20, 2020, in hospice care at his home in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.

Artistic career

He started blowing glass. Through his education at Portland State University, he would discover the process of pouring glass. Pulling inspiration from African and Japanese religious icons and figures, he uses his artwork to explore connections between the two. The Christian Science Monitor described his poured glass works as timeless, monumental and "hulking, architectural forms he creates...existed before the dawn of recorded history." Arthur Danto stated in 2000 that Ben Tré's glass works were redefining and powerful, and that he creates "a kind of pleasure that we don't usually associate with art." Immanent Circumstance, 1991, Norman Leventhal Park, Boston, Massachusetts Kira's Benches, 2007, Hood Museum of Art, Hanover, New Hampshire Mantled Figure, 1993, Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence, Rhode Island Siphon, 1989, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York Untitled, Artery Plaza, Bethesda, Maryland Various works; Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York Water Forest, Museum of Glass, Tacoma, Washington

Notable exhibitions

Design Visions, 1992, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, Australia Private Visions, Utopian Ideals: The Art of Howard Ben Tré, 2005, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York