Hanning has a national and international reputation as an accomplished artist in drawing and painting, but he is perhaps best known for his extraordinary glass pieces. Hanning established Australia’s first tableware hot-glass studio in Australia with Nick and Pauline Mount in 1980, named Budgeree Glass, situated on the outskirts of Boolarra in South Gippsland. Together, Hanning and the Mounts achieved enormous success, making glassware for department stores around Australia.

In the course of his career Hanning has visited North America on four occasions and become acquainted with leading hot glass artists such as Richard Marquis and Paul Marioni. As part of a two-man team Hanning created a decorative glass wall in the Seattle Police Station, and his work has since become acquired by many leading galleries and institutions around the world, including the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, the Tacoma Art Museum in the USA, and Parliament House in Canberra.

Hanning is renowned for his intricate etching and carving of images into the surface of glass forms. He is a master and a world leader of this technique, which has led to exhibitions and acclaim from around Australia and internationally. Hanning’s imagery draws on a range of natural and industrial imagery in his work, but he is particularly renowned for the ‘cameo’ glass vessels—typically vases, bowls and spheres—that carry images of structures and strange architectures, often containing mysterious floating objects, glimpses of landscape, and optical effects, all executed with a geometric precision.

Into the Light spans over forty years of artmaking and is an ideal opportunity to explore the work of Tony Hanning in depth, including a recent series of drawings of local landscapes.

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