Kohler, Lucartha

Lucartha Donges Kohler was born in 1938 to William Donges and Jessie Whitehead in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She studied at the Carnegie Mellon Institute, Moore College of Art, and Penland School of Crafts.

Kohler enjoyed a long and successful career as a glass artist, teacher, and writer. Early in her career, she worked as a fashion designer, but she became intrigued by the medium of glass in the 1960s. Kohler was best known for glass casting, but she also employed and taught other glassworking techniques. Kohler taught nationally and internationally, serving on the faculty of the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and Fleisher Art Memorial. She was also a frequent instructor at the Corning Museum of Glass Studio.

Kohler showed her work in more than one hundred exhibitions and has pieces in significant glass collections. She wrote two books on glass: Glass: An Artist's Medium (1998) and Women Working in Glass (2003).

Kohler died in December 2017.