Larry Bell

The octogenarian artist talks about his upcoming shows, the magic of glass, and what has kept him alive.

- Words: Julie Belcove Photography: Stefan Wachs

AS A QUINTESSENTIAL member of the Light and Space movement—the blend of Minimalism and curiosity about optical perception that germinated among a coterie of West Coast artists in the 1960s—Larry Bell has spent the better part of seven decades rigorously investigating the beguiling properties of glass. But his practice began with an accident.

He'd dropped out of the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, where he'd enrolled with the goal of becoming a Disney animator, after realising he was more drawn to fine art. To pay for a studio in Venice Beach, he took a job in a frame shop. There, he learnt to cut glass—and began experimenting with its “magical qualities” in his paintings and sculptures. When a piece he was placing in a small shadow box broke in half, he grudgingly decided to finish the artwork anyway, inserting a sheet of blue paper behind the shard.