Venezia
– Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore - Le Stanze del Vetro – Fulvio Bianconi at Venini
Exhibition. The exhibition, curated
by Marino Barovier, until January 10th, at the Stanze del Vetro, shows over 300
works of the innovative graphic designer, illustrator, caricaturist, Fulvio Bianconi,
one of the most prolific artists to work with famous glassworks during the
Fifties, he designed pieces that would become true icons of Murano artistic
glassmaking.
Above.
Fazzoletto Vases – 1949-1950. The famous handkerchief vases was the result of
the personal and direct exchange of views between Bianconi and Paolo Venini and
pieces were soon acquired by museums of decorative arts as fine example of Murano artistic
glassmaking.
Fulvio
Bianconi at Venini. Marino Barovier curator of the exhibition, it is his
fourth exhibition dedicated to the history of the Venini glassware company, organized
by Le Stanze del Vetro, a long-term cultural initiative launched by Fondazione
Giorgio Cini and Pentagram Stiftung devoted to the study and the promotion of
the art of glassmaking in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Photograph
courtesy Le Stanze del Vetro
Fulvio
Bianconi - African Women - black glass and glass with polychrome murrine
(hot-worked mosaic) - 1954
Director of the Scientific Commission of the Fondazione
Giorgio Cini, Luca Massimo Barbero and Pasquale Gagliardi, secretary
general , Fondazione Giorgio Cini
Pentagram
Stiftung’s David Landau
Fulvio
Bianconi at Venini – Fasce di Colore - bands of colors – 1953. Bianconi focused
on pieces with sophisticated shapes, characterized by strong colors, designing
striking works, some of which sum up the enthusiasm of the “fabulous” Fifties,
and later became true icons of Murano glassmaking.
Fulvio
Bianconi at Venini – Forati or Buchi – holed or with holes – 1951-1952. In
designing this series Bianconi tackled the theme of the “vase with a hole”,
inspired by Henry Moore.
Photograph courtesy Le
Stanze del Vetro
Fulvio
Bianconi - Zebra with Monkey - opaque poly-chrome glass 1948-49
Fulvio Bianconi – With applied
Tesserae and Pezzati – 1950-1954
Fulvio
Bianconi at Venini – A Macchie – with patches – 1950. Among the subjects are
also the master glass-makers themselves depicted with blow pipe, perhaps the
artist’s homage to the makers of his glass pieces.
Fulvio
Bianconi at Venini – Mermaids, Decoro a Rete, Nudes – 1950. During this period
Bianconi produced a series of artifacts of a figurative kind, some dealing with
marine subjects (mermaids and fish) and others developing the theme of the
female body. Many of these pieces are characterized by a technique consisting
of an applied netting of lattimo threads.
Fulvio Bianconi – Nudes – 1950
Filmmaker, Gianluigi Calderone who directed the documentary, La Commedia dell’Arte di
Fulvio Bianconi
Fulvio
Bianconi at Venini - Commedia dell’Arte – 1948.
The figurines of the Commedia del Arte, Italian popular theater are one
of Bianconi’s most characteristic productions for Venini. Returning to the
Murano tradition of figurines, which had been particularly fashionable in the
1930s, the artist proposed a playful and iconic re-interpretation, dealing in a
quasi-caricatural spirit with the theme of the maschere (stock characters of
Italian popular theatre), which at the time had been a popular theme in
artistic circles.
Fulvio Bianconi at Venini