SAN FRANCISCO, CA.- Montague Gallery is presenting a selection of recent works by Lino Tagliapietra. The show is titled Radiance, based on the artist’s engagement with color and his appreciation of the unique light of San Francisco. Widely considered the best glass artist in the world, this is Tagliapietra’s second exhibition with the gallery and showcases 22 works made between 2017-2019. The exhibition opened on August 23 and runs through September 28, 2019.

Tagliapietra states that he expresses himself through the use of color. “The color gives the impression of the spirit, how we work, how we are feeling,” said Tagliapietra. He compares San Francisco to glass and believes its light and color are characteristic of the city. “San Francisco is like glass - it looks very strong, but there is a fragility too. To me, what is special about San Francisco is the light. There are very few places in the world that have this light – it makes colors dominant.”

Lino Tagliapietra was born in 1934 in Murano, Italy and became an apprentice glassblower at age 11. Even at a young age, Tagliapietra exhibited an immense dexterity for glass and was appointed the title of “Maestro”, an honor reserved for only the best glassblowers, when he was just 21 years old. In 1979, the artist visited Seattle for the first time and introduced students at the famed Pilchuck Glass School to the long tradition of Venetian glass blowing creating a cross-cultural collaboration that helped to shape the identity of the American studio glass movement.

Tagliapietra ultimately diverged from the Murano factory structure and its constraints in order to follow his own creative vision. Since then his work has been characterized by a bold and unapologetically wild use of color and the constant pursuit of inspiration and innovation with new shapes and forms. His work creates a tension between technical mastery and experimentation that comes from a lifelong intimacy with an intricate, mysterious and sometimes volatile medium.

Lino’s exquisite and unique pieces grace some of the most prestigious museum collections in the world, including the de Young Museum in San Francisco, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the Victoria and Albert Museum of London, as well as numerous galleries and private collections. In 2009, the Museum of Tacoma dedicated a major travelling retrospective exhibition of Lino’s work, which was also hosted by other museums in the United States including: the Smithsonian American Art Museum's Renwick Gallery Washington DC; the Chrysler Museum of Art Norfolk, Virginia; the Palm Springs Art Museum Palm Springs, California; and Flint Institute of Arts, Flint, Michigan. In Venice, 2011, the Veneto Institute of Sciences, Letters and Arts, dedicated an exhibition to Lino entitled "Lino Tagliapietra from Murano to Studio Glass." In June of 2019, Lino Tagliapietra celebrated the 40th Anniversary of his first summer at the Pilchuck Glass School, where he began teaching American glassblowers in 1979.