- Entertainment
Art Talks – Eternal Splendours – Venini
Following Rubelli’s exploration of textiles, the Art Talks season concludes with a craft that has shaped Murano for more than a century: the art of blown glass.
Venini was founded in 1921, when Milanese lawyer Paolo Venini and Venetian antiques dealer Giacomo Cappellin established their first furnace on Murano, appointing painter Vittorio Zecchin as artistic director. Its very first creation, the celebrated “Veronese” vase, was inspired by painting: Zecchin designed it after looking at Paolo Veronese’s Annunciation, which is still housed today at the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice. Since then, Venini has collaborated with some of the greatest names in twentieth-century design – Gio Ponti, Carlo Scarpa, Ettore Sottsass and Alessandro Mendini – and its creations are now part of the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and MoMA in New York, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Fondation Cartier in Paris. One Venini work, “La Sentinella di Venezia”, created by Thomas Stearns in 1962, sold at auction for $737,000, making it one of the most valuable pieces of Murano glass ever sold.
“Eternal Splendours” captures precisely this: an unstable, incandescent material that, in the right hands, becomes something capable of enduring for an entire century without losing its brilliance.
During the evening, a Venini representative will guide guests through the history of the glassworks, sharing examples of the techniques and collaborations that have shaped its legacy – a fitting way to close the season by taking a closer look at a material usually admired only behind museum glass.
The evening will be accompanied by Ribolla Gialla Eufem from La Viarte, wine partner of the season.
Admission is free with prior booking.
Info: jesolo@falkensteiner.com