Meet the Maker Crafting Ethereal Glassworks That Turn Lighting into Sculpture

The first time Jeremy Maxwell Wintrebert stepped into a glass studio, he felt an instant jolt of recognition. “It was like imagining the love of your life for over a decade and finally meeting her,” he recalls. “Those first few seconds of meeting glass—this hot, molten, dangerous, sexy, crazy, light-emitting goo—were among the most intense of my life.”

Today, from his atelier beneath the historic Viaduc des Arts in Paris, Wintrebert creates lighting and furniture for clients including Pierre Yovanovitch, India Mahdavi, Citizen Artist, and Jake Arnold. His practice also includes large-scale sculptures, which he describes as a 20-year research process culminating in three chapters, installations that “recount the story of the universe through glass.” In 2019, he received the Prix Bettencourt pour l’Intelligence de la Main, France’s top honor for craftsmanship and innovation; his work has been shown in and is in the collections of prestigious institutions including the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Palais de Tokyo and the MusVerre.

Before opening his studio in 2015, he spent a decade traveling the world to apprentice with glass masters including Dale Chihuly in Seattle and Davide Salvadore in Venice, learning to handle molten glass as both an artistic medium and a living element. But his obsession with glass began far earlier—after a childhood accident left dozens of shards lodged in his arm. Growing up on a farm in West Africa, in what he calls “a very hands-on environment where if you needed something, you had it made,” he had visited makers but had never seen anyone work with glass. “Suddenly, I was obsessed,” he says. “I didn’t know where [glass] came from or how it was made. I drove my mom crazy trying to melt our kitchen glasses in the oven—I think I was trying to make them less sharp.”

For Wintrebert, freehand glassblowing is an emotional conversation—between hands, head, heart, and material. The work starts with the gather, when molten glass, as hot as a volcano, is drawn from the furnace on a blowpipe. From there, the dialogue with gravity, air, and time can last for hours. “You start with a small seed and help it grow,” says the artist, whose work is also sold through Holly Hunt. “It’s a humble process.” He shapes and texturizes pieces using various materials including cork, newspaper, and wood, but rarely molds (except for research pieces or designs in cast glass). “A mold constrains the glass,” he explains. “It’s important for me for the glass to have its moment.”

Every piece that leaves his studio is wrapped in vibrant African wax cloth—a final, very intentional touch that traces back to where his story began. “My heart is in Africa,” he says. “The cloth is a way to talk about where I come from, and push a certain humility with the work. I like the idea that someone, somewhere, will receive this gift that Africa once gave me.”