NORFOLK.- The Chrysler Museum of Art presents Murano: Glass from the Olnick Spanu Collection, on view through April 25, 2004. This exhibition, organized and circulated by Exhibitions International, NY, features nearly 300 pieces of Venetian glass, all made in the 20th and 21st centuries, selected by glass scholar Marino Barovier from the outstanding collection of Nancy Olnick and Giorgio Spanu of New York. The national tour of this exhibition is made possible by Venini USA with local support generously provided by the Chrysler’s Business Exhibition Council. Additional support provided by New York University Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò.
Celebrated from the Middle Ages until the 18th century, the glass industry in Venice fell into a decline when the city was occupied for sixty years by Austria. There was a revival of historically based models after 1860, but it was in the 20th century that Murano again assumed leadership in glass design. Manufacturers such as Artisti Barovier, Barovier & Toso, M.V.F. Cappellin, Aureliano Toso, Seguso Vetri d’Arte and Venini found ways to ally the age-old craft traditions of the Murano glass masters with the style and modern taste of internationally famous designers, such as Alfredo Barbini, Ercole Barovier, Tomaso Buzzi, Fulvio Bianconi, Dino Martens, Flavio Poli, Gio Ponti, Carlo Scarpa, Archimede Seguso, Ettore Sottsass, Massimo Vignelli, Tapio Wirkkala, Vittorio Zecchin. The result of this collaboration was magisterial works in glass of a rare beauty.
Nancy Olnick and Giorgio Spanu discovered the allure of Italian glass almost by chance when they saw and acquired their first piece, an hourglass by Venini made in 1955. The collection contains many works from the 1950s: the bright polychrome Pezzati, designed by Fulvio Bianconi for Venini, the series Oriente inspired by Africa by Dino Martens for Aureliano Toso and the ethereally elegant Merletti of Archimede Seguso among them. This post-World War II flowering built upon earlier precedents. The collection advanced both back and forward in time, embracing works from the early twentieth century by the Artisti Barovier, the architect Tomaso Buzzi, the sculptor Napoleone Martinuzzi, and the painter Vittorio Zecchin who had restored the brilliance of the glass art tradition in Venice in the early twentieth century, as well as exploring glass made in Murano by contemporary artists, such as Yoichi Ohira, Laura Diaz de Santillana and Giorgio Vigna who continue to work there today.
On Loan from the Nancy Olnick and Giorgio Spanu Collection Among the earliest pieces in the exhibition are rare floral-style vases created by Artisti Barovier. From the 1920s, come superbly sculpted glass Pulegosi by Napoleone Martinuzzi. Venetian architect, Carlo Scarpa occupies a central place in the story of Murano glass, and he is represented with many works. The simplicity of his Trasparenti and Lattimi, the oriental forms of his Cinesi, the technical innovations of his Corrosi and Battuti, and the complexity of his Murrine, Opache and Granulari brought to Murano, during the 1930s and 1940s, a fresh breeze of modernity.
From the 1960s, we find advanced experimental work by the American Thomas Stearns, rare pieces such as La Sentinella di Venezia, of which only two examples are known, and the unique pieces Il vaso per le lacrime del Doge and Reliquiario del Doge.
The design and graphics of the exhibition are provided by Lella and Masimo Vignelli. Massimo Vignelli is himself a designer of glass featured in the exhibition. A smaller selection of glass from the Olnick Spanu collection was seen in New York at the Museum of Arts and Design in 2000 and at the Spazio Oberdan in Milan, Italy in 2001.
This exhibition will tour North America with venues following the Chrysler Museum at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Museum of Glass, Tacoma, Washington; The Detroit Institute of Arts; and the Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Nashville.
