Resources

This page has resources for the press, and for museums and galleries exhibiting MacNeil. For Further information, interviews, lectures, exhibits and other specific requests, please contact Linda MacNeil through the contact form CLICK HERE.

Linda MacNeil Biography

Linda MacNeil began her artistic career while she was a teenager, making silver jewelry that she sold in street fairs in her home town of Hanover, NH. She studied at the Philadelphia College of Art, Massachusetts College of Art and received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in 1976. Her mentor and professor at RISD was Jack Prip.

While she was attending college, Linda met her husband, the glass artist and sculptor Dan Dailey. He introduced her to the glass and showed her its extraordinary scope and an artist’s medium. Together they would drive cross country collecting vintage glass (Vitrolite). Glass was the answer to Linda’s obsession with color. Glass also enabled Linda to be the creator of every detail. Linda began using Vitrolite and plate glass in her work after graduating from RISD.

MacNeil established her first studio in 1976 in Amesbury, MA and began to show her works in art galleries around the U.S. from the earliest exhibits her art has received attention and acclaim, with magazine articles and grants from the Massachusetts Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. Showing mostly in art galleries alongside other artists who worked with glass and metal, she developed a significant following of collectors who own her art. This has enabled her to continue the development of her ideas, pursuing multiple abstract series; from geometric to organic forms and from minimal simplicity to highly detailed complexity.

MacNeil’s works have been exhibited in numerous art museums, including a solo exhibitions in 2003 at the Mint Museum in Charlotte, NC and at the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, WA in 2017. Her art is in the permanent collections of many museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Museum of Arts and Design, NYC, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and The Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

While she has made sculpture, architectural installations, hand mirrors, lamps, jewelry has long been her main focus. Standing apart from her contemporaries for her use of glass as a main element in fine jewelry, MacNeil has developed many techniques for achieving colors and forms of her own design and making. Through drawings and study models in plaster she proceeds to metal and glass in a deliberate manner; making the glass elements by kiln casting or cutting industrial stock. Stylistically there are few precedents in history that can be cited as evident in her art, but references to ancient Egypt, Art Deco, Modernist painting, and architectural structures exemplify the diversity within her conceptual approach.

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PUBLIC COLLECTIONS

Last updated December 2022

University of Miami Lowe Art Museum
National Museum of Sweden
American Jewelry Design Council, Hermitage, Pennsylvania
Les Archives de la Cristallerie Daum, Nancy and Paris
The Cleveland Museum of Art
Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York
Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, New Hampshire
Detroit Institute of Arts
Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton, Massachusetts
Gemological Institute of America, Carlsbad, California
Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation, Dearborn, Michigan
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Metal Museum Memphis, Tennessee
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
The Mint Museum, Charlotte, North Carolina
The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence
Museum of Arts and Design (formerly American Craft Museum), New York
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
National Liberty Museum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia
Philadelphia Museum of Art
Racine Art Museum, Racine, Wisconsin
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC
Speed Museum, Louisville, Kentucky
Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio
Victoria and Albert Museum, London

PHOTOS

EARLY WORKS (PRE 1976)

VIDEOS

DRAWINGS

STUDIO PROCESSES

MACNEIL CHRONOLOGY

1954 Born Framingham, Massachusetts

EDUCATION

1972 – 73 Philadelphia College of Art 
1973 – 74 Massachusetts College of Art, Boston
1976 BFA Rhode Island School of Design, Providence

AWARDS/RECOGNITION

1979 Massachusetts Council on the Arts Fellowship
1984 National Endowment for the Arts Visual Artists’ Fellowship, Crafts
2001 The University of the Arts, Philadelphia, Award for Excellence in Jewelry/Metalwork
2001 Coalition of Artists and Collectors Second Annual “Artist as Hero” Award, National Liberty Museum, Philadelphia (with Dan Dailey)
2011 James Renwick Alliance, Master of the Medium, Metal/Jewelry
2020 Saul Bell Design Award. First place, category: Metals - Alternative Materials

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

1976
• Studio Assistant, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Deer Isle, Maine
1981
• Lecture, Boston Glass Works
• Lecture, Glass Art Society Conference, Seattle
• Visiting Artist, Boston University, School of Artisanry
1982
• Visiting Artist, Pilchuck School of Glass, Stanwood, Washington
1985
• Lecture, British Artists in Glass Conference, West Surrey College of Art and Design, Farnham, West Surrey, England (with Dan Dailey)
1986
• Lecture, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence (with Dan Dailey)
1989
• Lecture, Miasa Bunka Center, Japan (with Dan Dailey)
1999
• Participant, Waterford™ Crystal International Glass Workshop, Kilbarry, Ireland (with Dan Dailey)
2000
• Lecture, The New York Times InsideCulture Club, “SOFA New York 2000: Sculpture Objects & Functional Art” (with Dan Dailey)
• Lecture, Paul Mellon Arts Center Gallery, Choate Rosemary Hall, Wallingford, Connecticut (with Dan Dailey)
2001
• Lecture, Beverly Hills Forum Series, Beverly Hills, California (with Dan Dailey)
• Lecture, South Shore Art Center, Cohasset, Massachusetts (with Dan Dailey)
• Lecture, The University of the Arts, Philadelphia
2002
• Artists panel, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh (with Dan Dailey and others)
2003
• Lecture, Mint Museum of Craft + Design, Charlotte, North Carolina
2009
• Lecture, Memorial Art Gallery – University of Rochester, Rochester, New York
2013
• Lecture and Visiting Artist, The University of the Arts, Philadelphia
2011 – 14
• Exhibitions Chair, American Jewelry Design Council, Hermitage, Pennsylvania
2011 – Present
• Member, American Jewelry Design Council, Hermitage, Pennsylvania
2019 – 2021
• President, American Jewelry Design Council, Hermitage, Pennsylvania

SOLO EXHIBITIONS AND GROUP EXHIBITIONS

For a full chronological listing of exhibitions CLICK HERE

INFLUENCES

Examples of influences on Linda MacNeil’s work.

For Further information, interviews, lectures, exhibits and other specific requests, please contact Linda MacNeil through the contact form CLICK HERE.