World-renowned glass sculptor Dale Chihuly’s “Golden Teal Chandelier” has been installed in the entryway of the Crocker Art Museum’s Teel Family Pavilion, setting the tone for the museum’s Summer of Glass, featuring three exhibitions highlighting glass from the ancient to the present.

“Little Dreams in Glass and Metal: Enameling in America, 1920 to the Present,” which runs June 19 through Sept. 11, is the first nationally traveling exhibition to survey the art of enameling in more than 50 years. Organized by the Los Angeles-based Enamel Arts Foundation, the exhibition includes 121 works by 90 artists, including the late Sacramentan Fred Uhl Ball, considered a pioneer in the field. Objects range from jewelry and vessels to large enamel-on-steel wall panels.

“Glass for the New Millennium: Masterworks from the Kaplan-Ostergaard Collection” runs July 10 through Oct. 2 and surveys the work of more than 70 dynamic global artists pushing the medium’s boundaries to make art in its fullest definition. Included are works from the field’s premier visionaries Richard Marquis, Marvin Lipofsky, Dale Chihuly, Klaus Moje and others, who made glass a vehicle for ideas, forever transforming this 20th-century studio movement.

Finally, “The Luster of Ages: Ancient Glass from the Marcy Friedman Collection,” which runs July 17 through Oct. 16, explores the beauty of ageless glass from the 6th century BCE to the period of Roman rule in the eastern Mediterranean. The collection’s 50 pieces, which include brightly colored miniature amphorae and lustrous perfume bottles, reflect the forms and influences of Greek, Roman and Phoenician cultures in the Holy Land. 

A variety of exhibition-related programming will accompany each exhibition and can be found at crockerartmuseum.org.