Born and raised in Milwaukee, Martha Glowacki received her MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She worked as academic curator of the Design Gallery at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and was Director of the James Watrous Gallery of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters. Previous to her work as a curator, she was a lecturer in metalsmithing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and at the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee. Along with her studio practice, Glowacki continues to do independent curatorial work.
Glowacki's work has been shown at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; the Milwaukee Art Museum; Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati; the Chazen Museum of Art, Madison; and the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, among others. She has been the recipient of grants from the Wisconsin Arts Board and the National Endowment for the Arts. Her work is in many collections, including the Chazen Museum, the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, and the John Michael Kohler Arts Center.
Solo exhibitions include Martha Glowacki's Natural History, Observations and Reflections, at the Chazen Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin-Madison (2017); Loca Miraculi: Rooms of Wonder, in the American Galleries at the Milwaukee Art Museum (2008—2013); If Only We Had Met: Six Stories, at the Racine Art Museum, Racine, Wisconsin (2013—2014); Private Science, in the INOVA Gallery, Milwaukee (2011); and Starry Transit, an installation in the Washburn Observatory in Madison sponsored by the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art in collaboration with the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Astronomy (2005).