The Sand Art Bottles of Andrew Clemens

The sand art bottles of Andrew Clemens (1857–1894) draw reactions of astonishment and disbelief. Deaf from age six, Clemens began creating his bottles at an early age, selling them from his home and in local shops in his hometown of McGregor, Iowa. He later developed his craft to an extraordinarily high degree, using tempered hickory sticks with specially designed tips to deposit and position naturally colored grains of sand inside chemists’ bottles. Many since have attempted to duplicate his technique but his works of art stand unmatched. Clemens made possibly thousands of sand art bottles during his short life but relatively few remain. Some of these are in museums, and many are in private collections. Those that occasionally appear at auctions sell for thousands of dollars. This book covers Clemens’s life and work, with dozens of detailed photographs of his intricate designs.

Roy Sucholeiki is a practicing neurologist in Chicago.

Roy Sucholeiki

Format: softcover (7 x 10)
Pages: 148
Bibliographic Info: 337 photos, maps, appendices, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2015
pISBN: 978-0-7864-9806-2
eISBN: 978-1-4766-2101-2
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments vi
Preface 1
1 The Beginning 3
2 Setting the Stage 15
3 The Artist Emerges 21
4 In Full Swing 35
5 The Masterpiece 61
6 Final Years 67
7 Gallery 73
8 The Craft of Sand Art 94
9 The Inspired 104
Conclusion 126
Appendix A: Bottles on Display 129
Appendix B: Values of Andrew Clemens’s Work 131
References 135
Index 137

“Sheds new light on a unique piece of Iowa’s history”—Iowa History Journal