Rago Auctions

Philip Baldwin (b. 1947) and Monica Guggisberg (b. 1955) have been a collaborative team for more than forty years. They share an instinctive appreciation for the subtle blending of art and design, functionality and abstract expression, combined with a love of material, glass especially, but also metal.

Their work has its own unique signature based in the Italian cold-working technique 'battuto', which they combine with the Swedish overlay process of layering colours. They have been pioneers in adapting these techniques, and their studio – now in Wales – has become a place through which generations of glass-blowers have passed and left as masters of these processes and the craft.

Monica and Philip's work reveals a preference for archetypal forms and symbols that have been used in architecture and making since the beginnings of humankind. They see these forms as an expression of the deep connections between our time and human history, and increasingly their interest in the cultural–historical aspects of the human condition plays a part in their practice.

Recent exhibitions in public spaces, such as in Canterbury Cathedral (2018–19) and at the Musée du Verre François Décorchemont in Conches (2022), reflect their concern for the shared conditions of our current age, highlighting some of the challenges while continuing to express their love of beauty in object and form.