contessanally: The Venice Glass Week – Le Stanze del Vetro – Vittorio Zecchin: Transparent Glass for Cappellin and Venini

Le Stanze del Vetro

Vittorio Zecchin: Transparent Glass for Cappellin and Venini

One wouldn’t expect on the idyllic Island of San Giorgio Maggiore, just across from Piazza San Marco, hidden, right next to the moored yachts, one of the most outstanding museums devoted to glass. The autumn exhibition at Le Stanze del Vetro is dedicated to the artist Vittorio Zecchin who, in the 1920s, revisited the classical trends of the time to relaunch and revive the art of glass making in Murano.

www.lestanzedelvetro.org

Vittorio Zecchin: Transparent Glass for Cappellin and Venini

Vittorio Zecchin (1878 – 1947) was an artist and painter from Murano. He is an important figure of twentieth-century glass, which he contributed to revive during the 1920s with the support of two enlightened entrepreneurs - Giacomo Cappellin and Paolo Venini - producing elegant hand-blown mostly monochrome glass works which reinterpreted the classical trend of the time, often drawing inspiration from glass or paintings by XVI-century Venetian artists. The Autumn exhibition, Vittorio Zecchin: Transparent Glass for Cappellin and Venini, is curated by Marino Barovier, above, and on show until 7 January.

Vittorio Zecchin: Transparent Glass for Cappellin and Venini

Costolati - 1921-1926

“A beautiful shape is reborn thanks to a beautiful material: one complements the other because line and shape are conceived and felt in the presence and almost by virtue of the material.”

G. Lorenzetti

1925

Susan Kleinberg, David Landau and Laura de Santillana

Silvia Damiani

Tonci Foscari, Massimo Micheluzzi and Brandino Brandolini d’Adda

Vittorio Zecchin: Transparent Glass for Cappellin and Venini

Con Decorazione - 1921-1925

The exhibition focuses on Zecchin’s extremely refined glass production. It was a turning point in twentieth-century Murano and contributed to breathe new life into glass making which, with rare exceptions, had been lingering in the sterile repetition of dated models. In particular, the exhibition Vittorio Zecchin: Transparent Glass for Cappellin and Venini features his glass production starting in 1921, when he was appointed Artistic Director at the V.S.M. Cappellin Venini and Co. glassware company, which the Venetian antiquarian Giacomo Cappellin had founded that year together with the young Milanese lawyer Paolo Venini with the aim of offering new products to an upper-middle class clientele.

Caterina Tognon, Barry and Patricia Friedman

Federica Marangoni

Emmanuel Babled

Vittorio Zecchin: Transparent Glass for Cappellin and Venin

Senza Decorazione - 1921-1925

Jean Blanchaert and Rinaldo Invernizzi

Leslie Genninger

Paolo Cuniberti and Marcantonio Brandolini d’Adda

Le Stanze del Vetro

Vittorio Zecchin: Transparent Glass for Cappellin and Venini

Costolati - 1921-1926

Marco Arosio, Alberica Archinto and Marco Ceresa

Alessandro Favaretto Rubelli

To coincide with the exhibition Vittorio Zecchin: Transparent Glass for Cappellin and Venini, a catalogue, edited by Marino Barovier and Carla Sonego, has been published by Skira for Le Stanze del Vetro.