Rago Auctions

Born in Chicago, artist Steve Linn has been creating works of sculpture for more than five decades. He worked primarily in wood and bronze until the early 1980s, when he introduced glass to his material vocabulary for celebrated results.

Upon graduating from the University of Illinois with a major in Floriculture and Ornamental Horticulture, Linn became an assistant designer at Arena Stage in Washington D.C. Here, Linn worked with set designer Robin Wagner, who encouraged him to pursue his own sculpture outside of the theatrical arena. He continued to support himself through art-adjacent teaching and technical support positions, and stumbled upon the incorporation of glass when making a sculpture of photographer Imogen Cunningham. As Linn himself puts it, “Throughout my career I have been a storyteller, a documentary sculptor, who takes these rigid materials and shapes them into supple histories of the lives of interesting people who have done marvelous things. I believe that my pieces should communicate on many levels and be accessible to all who view them.”

Today, Linn is based in France and his works can be found in many permanent collections, including the Long Beach Museum of Art, California; the Musee des Arts Decoratifs, Lausanne, Switzerland; and the Museum of American Glass, Millville, New Jersey, among others.