The Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Avenue
New York, New York 10028-0198
November 5 – March 2
Venetian Glass by Carlo Scarpa: The Venini Company, 1932-1947 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art is devoted to the work in glass of the influential Italian architect Carlo Scarpa (1906–1978). Scarpa created a unique and multifaceted body of work in architecture and design. In 1932, while in his mid-twenties, he was hired by Paolo Venini, founder of Venini Glassworks, to be an artistic consultant to the company. Until 1947, he worked closely with Venini master glass blowers and Mr. Venini himself to create more than two dozen styles, in the process pioneering techniques, silhouettes, and colors that thoroughly modernized the ancient tradition of glass blowing. The exhibition presents the results of this unique collaboration, featuring nearly 300 carefully selected works that highlight Scarpa’s significant contribution to the art of Venetian glass.
Sheena Wagstaff, the Metropolitan Museum’s Leonard A. Lauder Chairman of the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art, said: “We have the great fortune of partnering with the prestigious museum Le Stanze del Vetro to take up a ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ opportunity to bring to New York glass works of extraordinarily high caliber, that have never before been seen in any American museum. Visitors will encounter beautiful, translucent, and ethereal glass vessels, created from Scarpa’s radical pushing and expanding of glass-blowing techniques to their absolute limit. We also have an unprecedented opportunity to show Scarpa’s glass works alongside exquisite objects drawn from the Museum’s collections of Qing porcelain, ancient Greek and Roman cast glass, and 19th-century Murano vessels, whose designs were deeply inspirational to Scarpa.”
