CHICAGO, IL.- This weekend, Thursday, November 2, - Sunday, November 5, Schantz Galleries presents thirty new works by Maestro Lino Tagliapietra featuring his most recent innovations in glass. Tagliapietra, who will be at the event, is proud to introduce two of his newest innovations, works using the Florencia murrini, and a large installation of small, golden vessels. The, Florencia murrini, are small, individual elements which are made by folding, stretching hot glass, then cutting the resulting rods into workable sizes. This is accomplished well before the actual blowing begins, and the resulting murrini are composed, and blown into vessels in which the mosaic-like patterns are more distinct. When asked how does he keep transforming these new techniques, forms and ideas, Lino explained the key is to “listen to the intuition and make space for the imagination, and then...you must do it.”

Consisting of more than eighty golden, ancient looking vessels the sparkling Avventurine Installation seems to be floating weightlessly within the altar-like space. Yet, like the Maestro, they belie the effort and unending commitment to hard work and dedication reflect his golden years of experience, and the pursuit of beauty. Lino Tagliapietra has been an independent artist since 1989, exhibiting in museums around the globe, receiving countless honors, openly sharing his far-reaching knowledge of the medium and his skill as one of its finest practitioners, and helping to create a new renaissance in studio glassmaking.

Lino Tagliapietra is one of the world’s most accomplished artists working with glass, and his career has greatly enriched the international art world. As James Yood, adjunct professor of art history at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and regular contributor to GLASS magazine wrote, “there are probably no two words more respected and honored in the history of modern sculpture in glass than ‘Lino Tagliapietra’; he is the living bridge, the crucial link between the august history of Venetian glass and the ceaseless wonders of what today we call the modern Studio Glass Movement”.