Appraisals

William Warmus Inc.

My appraisal practice focuses on studio and modern glass, issues relating to chain of custody, forensic appraisals and risk management for cultural institutions. I am USPAP compliant and have taken the 15 hour USPAP course.

It’s my belief that an independent appraiser should actively handle artworks and publish essays and books about the artists and movements that are the focus of the appraiser’s practice. I have authored or co-authored over 20 books and over 100 articles in my field of expertise, and continue to curator exhibitions that keep me familiar with artworks and artists.

I have been appraising glass since the 1980s. Collections and/or individual objects appraised include art in the Saxe, Anderson, Parkman, Kotler, Mendel, Diamonstein-Spielvogel, Rose, Borowsky, Heineman, Werner, Baxt, Glick, Bellis, Sosin, Silverman, Haverty, Belkin, and Coville collections. I am also the advisor to the Parkman estate.

In 2014, 2009 and 2008 I taught courses covering the history and appraisal of modern and contemporary glass, as part of the appraisals study program of the American Society of Appraisers (ASA) at the Rhode Island School of Design.

In August 2019 I lectured at the American Society of Appraisers conference in New York City about issues of authenticity in modern glass. In May, 2019 I spoke at Rago Auctions in N.J. about the Icons of Contemporary Glass in the secondary market. In February 2019 I delivered a webinar, with dealer Lewis Wexler, sponsored by the Art Alliance for Contemporary Glass, that focused on the auction market for contemporary glass.

In 2006 I delivered a lecture about the secondary market, chain of custody and insurance issues at the American Society of Appraisers International Conference in New York City titled: Exploring Valuation Characteristics in 19th- through 21st-Century Glass.

I lectured at the SOFA Palm Beach art expo in 2005, moderating a panel of experts focused on appraisal and secondary market issues. The panel was repeated in 2007.

I testified as an expert witness in United States Federal Court (Southern District of New York, December 2005) and was accepted by the court as an expert, admitted to testify about valuation  of Tiffany glass in the trial, Bellis v. Tokio Marine. In 2006 I was an expert witness for Dale Chihuly in the copyright case, Chihuly v. Kaindl, Federal Court (Seattle). I was a consulting expert for a case in Federal Court concerning the authenticity of Tiffany artworks (confidentiality precludes listing date and location).

William Warmus Background

Warmus is a Fellow of the Corning Museum of Glass, past curator of Modern Glass at Corning, the author or co-author of about 20 books and monographs and over 100 essays, including biographies of Dale Chihuly, Louis C. Tiffany and René Lalique, and is presently at work on a book of his collected writings about the history and art of glass. He curated an exhibition (with Tina Oldknow) that explored the Venetian influences on American glassmaking in Venice at the Stanze del Vetro museum in 2020. He curated the exhibition “Years of Glass” at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach in 2022.

He is a past board member of Urban Glass, advisory member of the Collections Committee of the Museum of Glass (Tacoma) and a past member of the board of the Art Alliance for Contemporary Glass. The New York Times has described him as a Style Maker, and the University of Chicago magazine called him a “classical modernist.”

Warmus studied with the art critics Richard Shiff and Harold Rosenberg while at the University of Chicago, where he received a degree in Art History. In 1978 he became curator at The Corning Museum of Glass. Warmus became an independent curator in 1984 and was the editor of Glass magazine. The Wall Street Journal described the exhibition Fire and Form that he curated for the Norton Museum of Art in Palm Beach in 2003 as "substantial and delightful." He is past Executive Secretary of the Glass Art Society, a member of the Urban Glass Board of advisors, a contributing editor for Glass magazine, and was a member of the faculty at the Pilchuck School as well as a visiting artist at Pilchuck.

In 2005 Warmus received the AACG Honors award from The Art Alliance for Contemporary Glass “in recognition and appreciation of his outstanding contribution to knowledge and understanding of contemporary glass art.”