[4][6] Glasco became a decorated soldier from his service as a Private first class in Patton's 3rd Army in the Battle of the Bulge where he earned a Bronze Star Medal.

In San Miguel de Allende, Glasco also became acquainted with Jesús Guerrero Galván as well as Rufino Tamayo and his wife.

[2][6] After his successful exhibition at Perls, Glasco became the youngest artist featured in an collection of abstract expressionists' works at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

[2]  When Perls closed, Glasco moved to the Catherine Viviano Gallery,[6] which also managed the estate of Max Beckmann and several other important European and American artists.

[2] Pulitzer Prizing winning poet and short story writer, Elizabeth Bishop also collected Glasco's early drawings.

[2][3] Glasco's peripatetic nature and restless soul demanded he leave New York and travel widely in service to his unique vision.

[2]  After her death[15] and after a concentrated period creating sculpture in Taos, Glasco decamped again to the East Coast and England where he had made influential acquaintances among the London theater crowd.

However, before this stylistic transformation in his art would evolve, Glasco's restless spirit took him on many sojourns to various places in Europe including Greece and the Canary Islands, and later back to Mexico.

After his extensive travels in Europe, by the early 1970[10] he found a large, New York-style 19th Century loft in Galveston, Texas which he made his permanent home base.

Glasco was satisfied by the shadows, silhouettes and contours he produced as he broke the surface plane of the canvas with a cut patchwork of painted layers.

This interest culminated in a 1986 retrospective exhibition of Glasco's work at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston organized by then curator (and subsequent director) Marti Mayo.

[1][18] After the 1986 retrospective, Joseph Glasco continued to work in his loft on The Strand and in the 19th Century Victorian house he purchased on Sealy Street in Galveston's historic district.

Glasco was often visited by an array of locals, family members, and many out-of-town visitors such as Schnabel and the artist George Condo with whom he had become friends and remained close in his later years.

Glasco continued to paint, and show his work nationally and internationally while traveling frequently to Europe, India, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Nepal, Singapore and Thailand.

Troubled by health issues late in his life, Glasco continued his work producing a significant and distinguished body of innovative paintings in the 1990s until his death in 1996.

His conversations with Pollock and visits to The Metropolitan Museum together to study El Greco's work had a major impact on his artistic eye and early development.

Elements of artists from Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Piet Modrian, Nicolas Poussain and others are evident in the early and later works of Glasco's entire career.

[2][25] Poet and poetry editor for The New Yorker, Howard Moss introduced Glasco to writer William Goyen and from 1952 to the early 1960s they were partners.

[29] In addition to his many relationships with artists across several generations, Glasco's friendships and acquaintances extended to many other important figures of the time from art and art criticism, film, literature, music, opera, and theater including: Donald Baechler, Tallulah Bankhead, Samuel Barber, Paul Bowles, Jane Bowles, Dorothy Brett, Francesco Clemente, John Dexter, Mary Doyle, John Frankenheimer, Clement Greenberg, David Hockney, Margo Jones,[30] Peter Lanyon, Frieda Lawrence, Giancarlo Menotti, Frank O'Hara, Vincent Price, Stephen Spender, Teresa Stratas, Elaine Stritch and Thornton Willis[31] among many others.