VENICE, ITALY — The exhibition “Venice and American Studio Glass” opened at Le Stanze del Vetro on September 6, 2020, and is on view until January 10, 2021. Curated by Tina Oldknow and William Warmus, the exhibition gathers together 155 outstanding examples of contemporary art, craft, and design in glass by American artists, with a selection of iconic works by legendary Venetian maestros.
Dan Dailey, a pioneer of American studio glass, designed the exhibition layout for “Venice and American Studio Glass,” in which his work is also featured. The diversity of work in glass, both traditional and ground-breaking, demonstrates the enduring and versatile legacy of Venetian glassmaking in America.
Artists in the exhibition such as Harvey Littleton, Richard Marquis, Lino Tagliapietra, Dale Chihuly, Ginny Ruffner, Dante Marioni, and Nancy Callan, among many others, have had a profound influence on the development and evolution of American studio glass.
“It was back in 2016, when David Landau, one of the founders of Le Stanze del Vetro, was talking to Laura de Santillana, the granddaughter of Paolo Venini, that the idea struck. As he told me, 'I wanted to make sure that people realized that glassmaking in Venice was not only beautiful in itself and had its own history, but also... that it had an enormous effect on American Studio Glass.' Landau went on to invite Tina Oldknow and William Warmus, both former curators at The Corning Museum of Glass, to organize an exhibition to examine this relationship, and met with enthusiastic affirmative responses.
'It’s a story that’s been touched upon several times but has never been systematically thought out,' says Oldknow. The result was 'Venice and American Studio Glass,' which explores the many ways in which Venice in general and glassmaking on Murano in particular have influenced and inspired American glass artists from the nascent days of Studio Glass to the present day.”
— EMMA PARK, Glass Quarterly
Art historian and philanthropist David Landau is behind Le Stanze del Vetro exhibition space on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice. It is a joint initiative between The Cini Foundation and the Swiss-based, non-profit foundation Pentagram Stiftung, headed by Marie-Rose Kahane, David’s wife. The aim of Le Stanze del Vetro’s programming is to introduce 20th- and 21st-century glass to as many people as possible, and to make them aware of its history, its beauty, importance, and function.
Tina Oldknow is an independent curator and art historian specializing in contemporary art, craft, and design in glass. William Warmus is an art writer, independent curator, and art critic.
They have both been curators of modern and contemporary glass at The Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York.
Take a virtual tour of “Venice and American Studio Glass” at Le Stanze del Vetro.
Photos by Enrico Fiorese
From his rural New England studio, Dailey collaborated closely with Oldknow, Warmus and many of the artists throughout the exhibition planning process. He gave studio assistant Ken Gray the assignment to design and build a 1:20 scale model of the Stanze del Vetro galleries and the 155 works to be placed within. The laser-cut, painted cardboard structure was made to fold flat for shipping, with reference photos and instructions for snap-together assembly upon arrival in Venice.
