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In-depth research based mainly on the unpublished materials coming from the Venini Historical Archive.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.

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, Eugène 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.