Paolo Venini and His Furnace

In-depth research based mainly on the unpublished materials coming from the Venini Historical Archive. The protagonist of Murano glass in the twentieth-century, Paolo Venini (1895–1959), with his passionate activity spanning almost forty years, made a decisive contribution to the vitality of the art of glass, achieving extraordinary results soon recognized internationally. A native of Milan and a former partner in the Cappellin Venini firm, in 1925 he founded the V.S.M. Venini & C. glassworks with Napoleone Martinuzzi and Francesco Zecchin as partners, from whom he separated in 1932. Becoming president of the company, he worked untiringly as the undisputed director and manager of the Venini firm up to his death, which occurred in 1959. In defining the catalogue of the glassworks, he also contributed as the inventor of new series of glass pieces in the mid-1930s, but in particular during the 1950s. For the greater part of the three hundred models in this volume, Paolo Venini had recourse to the traditional Murano techniques, of which he gave a refined and innovative interpretation. The volume also documents the contribution of the artists who worked with him intermittently between the 1930s and the 1950s. Two hundred and fifty glass pieces tell the story of collaborations with Tyra Lundgren, Gio Ponti, Piero Fornasetti, Eugene Berman, and Riccardo Licata, but also the Americans Ken Scott and Charles Lin Tissot. To them must be added the architects Massimo Vignelli and Tobia Scarpa, and the Norwegian designer Grete Korsmo.