We Buy Lino Tagliapietra Glass

LINO TAGLIAPIETRA BIOGRAPHY

Lino Tagliapietra (born 1934)

Master glass blower, Lino Tagliapietra, was born in Murano, Italy in 1934. When he was 11 years old, he scoured Venice for an apprenticeship and landed one under the care of Master Archimede Seguso. Master Seguso was one of the most respected Muranese glassmakers on the island. After years of learning the trade, Lino Tagliapietra was a master glass blower, yet he was only 21 years old. From there, he continued improving his skills as a glassmaker. He started working with several glass companies in Murano like the Vetreria Galliano Ferro, Venini & Co., and Effetre International.

Lino Tagliapietra later taught at the Pilchuck School in Seattle. The relationship worked well for a time, but Lino wanted to express his works without limitation. He felt he wasn’t able to focus on his own creativity when tied down with the school as a partner. So although he still continued to teach, he left the partnership and begin creating his own art glass.

At the start of 1990, Lino was practicing his trade without contractual obligations to hamper his creativity and unique ideas. Since he started working as a free artisan, Lino’s notoriety as a glass artist accelerated. He was very dedicated to exploring and experimenting with ideas from different sources of inspiration. He’s now considered to be one of the greatest and most talented glass artists of today. His motivation comes from personal experiences with different types of people and fellow artists.

Art Glass Teacher

Lino continues to enhance his skills as a glassmaker even though he’s already considered a genius by many of his fellow glass artists. This level of dedication truly makes him a glass artist, teacher and mentor all at the same time.

Lino shares his techniques and processes around the world and his influence reaches as far as Australia, China, and Japan. Many of his art glass creations are named after the places he’s visited like Bilbao, Borneo, Maui and Seattle.

Exhibitions

In 2009, the Museum of Tacoma held a solo exhibit for Lino’s art glass. Hosted by some of the most notable museums in the United States, including: the Chrysler Museum of Art (Norfolk, VA), the Flint Institute of Arts (Michigan), the Palm Springs Art Museum and the Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington D.C.).

As his fame grew, so have Lino Tagliapietra glass prices and his number of exhibitions. In 2011, there was another solo exhibit in his hometown of Venice by the Veneto Institute of Sciences, Letters and Arts. This gave the people of Venice an opportunity to see Lino’s art glass in the Lino Tagliapietra from Murano to Studio exhibit.

The widespread fame of Lino Tagliapietra glass led him to receive several awards throughout his career as a glassmaker. In 2006, the James Renwick Alliance of Washington D.C. gave him the title Distinguished Educator Award. In 2011, he received a second Honorary Degree and received the title Doctor of Fine Arts from Ohio State University. Then in 2012 it was the Phoenix Award in Venice, Italy for his contribution in the glassmaking industry. Lino got the Visionary Award in 2013 at the Art Palm Beach in Florida, the Career Award in 2014 by the Instituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere e Arti, and the Best Glass Work Award in 2015 at the Masterpiece Exhibition held in London.

Today, you can observe his timeless creations all over the world. Lino Tagliapietra glass is in museums like the De Young Museum of San Francisco, the Metropolitan Museum of New York, and the Victoria and Albert Museum of London.

Lino Tagliapietra For Sale

You can find glass by Lino Tagliapietra for sale in art galleries and retail shops. For those curious about Lino Tagliapietra glass prices, we provide no obligation valuations.

Lino Tagliapietra glass is a product of his genius. It’s evident in his impressive, intricate, and unique glass art. The utmost skill talent and devotion has gone into every piece. For all the glass art lovers around the world, his works are definitely a sight to behold.

Christopher Ries Biography

Early Life and Artistic Foundation

Christopher Ries (born 1952) grew up on a farm in Central Ohio. The son of Raymond and Mildred Ries, he became interested in art and ceramics as a young adult. While in high school, Chris Ries produced pottery in his parents’ cellar that he used as a makeshift studio.

Education and Glass Discovery

In 1971, Ries began a Fine Arts degree in ceramics at Ohio State University. There he honed his skills in glazing pottery and the glass used to glaze ceramics. In his exploration of working with glass, he built a glass studio at the university. Thus becoming the first instructor as an undergraduate student. He studied types of glass, their chemical properties, compositions and blowing glass. He then graduated in 1975.

When he was in his senior year, Ries attended a visiting guest lecturer, Harvey Littleton. The lecturer was struck by the accomplishments of the young man as both a glass teacher and as a glass artist. Ries was invited to work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison as Littleton’s research assistant. With the offer accepted, Christopher Ries began working there from the next autumn.

Ries’s mentorship under Littleton lasted two years. In this time, his interest in the optical properties of glass grew and he started experimenting with cold glass carvings. Before this, he had focused on hot glass blowing. There weren’t specific glass-carving tools for sculpting cold glass at the time. So, Ries developed a lot of the necessary glass sculpting equipment himself. In 1978, Christopher Ries graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a Master’s in Fine Arts. He then returned to his home town in Columbus, OH.

Professional Development and Schott Partnership

After he graduated, Christopher Ries began researching the best glass for sculpture. His search led to him discovering Schott Optical (Schott North America) lead crystal. He would travel to buy cullet from Schott in Duryea, Pennsylvania. He continued to source glass from Schott over the course of the next two years. With his pieces of cullet, he would sculpt and carve in his Columbus studio. Here, he would also polish the pieces to completion.

After developing his technique, he impressed Dr. Franz Herkt, Schott’s President. They invited him to work as Artist in Residence for Schott Optical. He signed a contract in 1986 and worked with Schott to produce a body of work at the Duryea facility. Here he worked there as a non-salaried independent contractor. He left after his on-site studio was destroyed by fire in March 2015. This fire also ended Ries’s relationship with Schott.

A lot of the masterpieces he produced at Schott were made after he created forms in a private studio he established in Tunkhannock, Pennsylvania. And this studio is still in operation. Ries’s private studio is also where he worked with other mediums like paint and wood.

Artistic Technique and Optical Innovation

Christopher Ries glass sculptures have a technical proficiency. Meaning, they can change optical compositions internally. The artist uses a clear lead crystal for his works. This glass has a very high refractive index, excellent homogeneity and light transmission. The properties of this glass enable him to create these complex optical effects.

When Ries begins a project, he starts with a large block of optical glass. The glass is then reduced to its art form through a process of cutting, grinding, carving and polishing. Some of his largest sculptures weigh over 4,000 pounds. It can take as much as a year to reduce and polish a glass sculpture.

Art critic, professor James Yood at Northwestern University described Christopher Reis glass as “an art of such suggestiveness and finesse, of ceaseless transition and surprise that it constitutes one of the most intriguing exercises in the poetics of optics anywhere in contemporary art.” Ries has won many accolades and his work is exhibited in museums and major collections across the U.S., Japan and Europe.

Major Works and Recognition

Christopher Ries glass is the largest collection of crystal sculpture. Ries’s chef-d’oeuvre was the largest monolithic glass sculpture in the world. Weighing almost 680 kilograms (1,500 pounds), it was sculpted from a block of glass weighing 3,000 pounds. Ries’s Sunflower IV is one of his most famous sculptures. This weighs 1,100 pounds and it took around four months and over 1,800 hours to carve.

Legacy and Artistic Philosophy

When describing his work, Ries has used the phrase “vessel for light” to describe his pieces. In speaking of his glass sculptures, he said; “all that we know about the universe, the composition of the stars, and the distances within the universe are studied through light…It is the one medium that gathers, focuses, amplifies, transmits, filters, diffuses and reflects it. It is the quintessential medium for light. I see it all on a symbolic level.”

Christopher Ries has four children: Banks, Chase, Catherine and Caroline.

DINO MARTENS BIOGRAPHY

Dino Martens (1894 – 1970)

The glass of Dino Martens is some of the most recognizable Murano glass from 20th century Italian art. His innovative use of bright metallic colors using huge murrini (glass rods with colors or images in them) and fantastical shapes make Dino Martens one of the great creators of modern art.

Martens was born in Venice in 1894. He went on to study at the Accademia di Belle Art, where he developed his skills as a painter. He exhibited in Venice as a young man in the 1920’s. By the end of the decade was a designer for Salviati & Co, a leading glass maker. After fighting in the African War, he took up the position of artistic director at Aureliano Toso. They were a famous Venetian glass maker where Dino became a legend. There he experimented with creating astounding designs that pushed the boundaries of what was possible with glass.

Murano Glass

He was so influential that Dino Martens glass and Murano glass from the 1950’s are synonymous. His shocking and wild style does not belie the careful planning and preparation put into his work. Dino’s glass is very calculated. Yet, they contain a wildness he manages to capture in the bright patchworks and pigments that make up his creative vases and art glass. This was a man in control of his output. A man who possessed a poet’s soul, naming his works in a romantic fashion.

Dino Martens Glass for Aureliano Toso

A great example of Dino’s Murano glass is his Oriente series. A vase from this series encapsulates the energy and vibrancy of his work and life. He played with form and color, putting unusual colors close together and playing them off each other. All the while intriguing the eye with almost biological shapes.

Dino Martens glass is collectible and deserving of the position it holds in Murano glass history. A Dino Martens vase or or other art glass is a bit of history that marks the breaking away of glass into the world of expressive art. The artist kept producing into the late years of his life. It was during these later years that his art glass became more subtle and refined.