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1892
- 1977
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Sculptor,
designer and businessman. The son of a glassworker from Murano, he attended
the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia. He joined the secessionist group
of Ca' Pesaro, where he exhibited his sculptures in 1908. His activity
as a sculptor was intense in those years, and he exhibited in the major
Italian events as well as in Paris, Brussels and Vienna. He was Gabriele
D'Annunzio's favorite artist beginning in 1917 and designed a funeral
monument for him, as well as sculpture and many works in glass which may
still be seen today at the Vittoriale. Between 1921 and 1931, he directed
the Museo Vetrario di Murano and in 1925 he became a partner and artistic
director at the Vetri Soffiati Muranesi Venini & C.. After an initial
period in which he carried on the concepts defined by his predecessor
Vittorio Zecchin, creating beautiful transparent blown glass pieces, he
elaborated his own distinct style directly derived from his experience
as a Novecento sculptor. In 1928 he made his first pieces in pulegoso
glass giving life to a plastic series of vessels with impressive shapes
and vivid colors, alongside which he created unusual cacti, fruits and
animals. After leaving Venini, in 1932 he founded Zecchin-Martinuzzi Vetri
Artistici e Mosaici with Francesco Zecchin, for which he designed figures
of animals and cacti, opaque vessels with classical shapes, female nudes
in solid massiccio glass. After four years he left the company to dedicate
himself exclusively to sculpture, but in the post-war period (1947) he
again turned to glass, and became artistic director of Alberto Seguso's
Arte Vetro, where he made glass sculptures shaped while hot. Between 1953
and 1958, he designed chandeliers and vitreous tiles for the Vetreria
Cenedese, whereas between the Sixties and Seventies he designed works
produced by Alfredo Barbini for Pauly & C.
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