Glass artist Gene Koss had his first solo exhibition at the University of Southwestern Louisiana (today the University of Louisiana at Lafayette) in 1976, the same year he earned an M.F.A. from Temple University. Koss founded Tulane University’s glass studio in 1977, thus ushering the art-glass movement into New Orleans. As an art professor, Koss’s principal aim was to elevate glass from the decorative to the fine-art world. He crafts monumental sculptures primarily from steel and glass. The recipient of many grants (including one from the National Endowment for the Arts), his public work in New Orleans includes a sculpture at the Contemporary Arts Center and sculptural rondels for stained-glass windows at Touro Synagogue.