Vittorio Zecchin: Transparent Glass for Cappellin and Venini

A comprehensive index of blown-glass pieces designed by Vittorio Zecchin between 1921 and 1926Vittorio Zecchin: Transparent Glass for Cappellin and Venini presents, for the first time, the entire glass production of Murano painter and glassmaker Vittorio Zecchin (1878–1947) at the two storied glassworks.Between 1921 and 1925, Zecchin served as artistic director of the V.S.M. Cappellin Venini & Company glassworks, founded in 1921 by the Venetian antiquarian Giacomo Cappellin and the young Milanese lawyer Paolo Venini to offer a sophisticated, modern style of glass production. Responding to the demands of the firm and its customers, Zecchin created startlingly modern monochrome blown-glass pieces with extraordinary colors and elegant, minimal lines―a radically new style for glass that marked a decisive turning point in the 20th-century history of Murano.Vittorio Zecchin: Transparent Glass for Cappellin and Venini reconstructs for the first time the entire collection of transparent blown-glass pieces designed by Zecchin between 1921 and 1926, first for Cappellin and Venini and then for Cappellin alone. It includes a sequence of about 900 luminous objects (from vases to compote bowls, from table services to chandeliers), painstakingly identified following rigorous research, and extensively illustrated here with new photography, plus a selection of largely unpublished period photographs and drawings. A major contribution to the history of design, this volume casts new light on the modernist master of Murano glass. Read more