Vinicio Vianello

Vianello is one of the most significant personalities of the Murano scene of the period after the second world war. Born in Venice in 1924, he attended art studies at the local Fine Arts Academy.

Despite of his very young age, he became interested in glass as a means of artistic expression, and after having worked briefly for some Murano furnaces, where he went very deeply into a greater knowledge of techniques and hands, he exhibited his first creation at the 1950 Venice Biennale.
An outstanding maestro executed his vases: Alfredo Barbini.
A prominent feature of these object is their lack of symmetry which represented a very considerable break with the more traditional glassmaking concepts, always considered as basic to the Murano glass technique.
In 1952 he was strongly influenced by the new discoveries in the field of nuclear physics: thus he proposed at the Venice Biennale a series of "esplosioni nucleari", large abstract vases characterized by an unusual creative boldness that only a great master like "Fei" Ferdinando Toso could accomplish.
The critical success of these one-of-a-kind objects was huge, and their presentation was reported extensively in the international press.
Formerly, "Fei" himself had made a series of "vetri spaziali" with a tall off-centred stem, exhibited at the 1951 Milan Triennale (Italy).
At the following Triennale, Vianello exhibited an extraordinary mirror frame (made by S.A.L.I.R. ); its surface was engraved with a diamond tip in an abstract decor and with the application of large irregular bubbles of iridescent glass, bubbles executed by "Fei".
It's interesting to notice that the cooperation between Vinicio Vianello and the S.A.L.I.R. firm would produce a number of objects designed by Vianello, such as the lucky series "milleocchi".
In 1956 he was appointed by the Veneto Department of Labour to arrange the preparation of the great exhibition dedicated to the Murano glass in Göteborg, at the Röhsska Konstslöjdmuseet. The show was a large success and the very particular arrangement of the objects by size and by colour in relation to the large stained glass windows set up as a background was compared by some Swedish critics to the attraction exerted by light on flowers. But the most significant acknowledgement came from 1957 Milan Triennale (Italy), where he was awarded the Compasso d'Oro Prize for his vases "variante".
The master glassblower who executed these works was Lino Tagliapietra: much about him would be heard in the following years. Production activities was later combined with his work as a member of Venice Biennale's Ecxecutive Committee, a task that, due to obvious reasons of incompatibility, would make him abandon the show as an exhibitor.
Later on Vianello was associated for a certain time with Orrefors glass factory, as a guest of Edward Hald, so he could go deeply into the techniques and the production's philosophies that characterized that firm, with particular reference to the new patents held by Sven Palmqvist.
This experience would have much influence on his future work.
In 1957 he in fact opened the Vinicio Vianello & Co. firm, in Venice, at Miracoli n. 6071, producing various glass objects and lighting fixtures, very close to the more current concept of industrial design. But quite soon he abandoned this kind of activity as well to dedicate himself to the design of lighting systems for large architectural projects such as hotels, congress halls, airports, etc., particularly in African and Asian countries.