Gem of the Month: Lino Tagliapietra (born 1934 Italy)

August's Gem of the Month is also this artist's birthday! I have been to the so-called Island of Glass, Murano, off the coast of Venice. I have rarely been so wowed by an art process as I was when I saw actual glassblowing by glass artists. Like many art forms I get excited about, I figured I probably could not try out glassblowing in my living room/studio in my apartment? This incredibly beautiful piece just scratches the surface of that Island of Glass Beauty!

Gem of the Month for August: Lino Tagliapietra (born 1934 Italy)

Lino Tagliapietra, Stromboli, 2005, glass, 50.8 x 20.3 x 10.2 cm (20” x 8” x 4”)  Philadelphia Museum of Art, © 2026 Lino Tagliapietra (PMA-8355)

Tagliapietra has created numerous iterations of his Stromboli style glass objects. The forms of this line are simpler than many of his vessel shapes, making it easier for the artist to experiment with color combinations and decorative motifs. Vessels like this are created out of murrine (plural of murrina) in which the interior colors are visible as well as those on the outside. The murrine are colored patterns made into a glass cane that are revealed when the cane is cut into thin cross sections, that are then molded into vessels. Stromboli is named for the Italian sandwich that is rolled and features numerous layers when cross-sectioned.

Background

The tradition of glass making began thousands of years ago in the Mediterranean world. In ancient Egypt, the first known glass as a component of faience ware, dates from as far back as the Neolithic Badarian culture at the turn of the 4000s and 3000s BCE. Glass is believed to have been first shaped into mold-formed vessels in ancient Phoenicia around the 3000s  BCE. The first true glass ware, dating to the 1400s BCE, were actually this type of mosaic glass. Mosaic glass ware is made by fusing pieces of different colored glass.

Since ancient times, glass has been known to most of the cultures in the world. In some cultures, such as China and Japan, glass took second place to the importance of ceramics and textiles. What is common throughout the world and history is that glass was always considered a "minor" art form, essentially a decorative art. A revival of interest in glass and stained glass art in the West emerged from the Arts and Crafts Movement of the second half of the 1800s, and its Gothic Revival component.

The glass art of the late 1800s was, however, no slavish copy of Medieval stained glass or of traditional glass-working methods. Arts and Crafts artists held closely to the advice of British philosopher John Ruskin (1819-1900), who advised artists to follow nature as closely as possible. This led to the incorporation, primarily in the "decorative" arts, of floral and organic motifs, many of them inspired by non-Western art such as Japanese, Chinese, African, and numerous ancient cultures.

During the 20th century, the number of artists who sought to use glass as a means of fine art expression increased greatly. Initially most glass sculptors were also associated with major industrial glass producers, but as the century wore on -- just as with the woodworking and ceramic fine art movements in mid-century -- glass artists increasingly turned to creating their works in their own studios. In 1962 the Toledo Museum of Art (Toledo, the home to the Libbey Glass Company) held a seminar in which artists were shown how to create blown glass works in their studios. It is marked as the beginning of the American Studio Glass Movement.

One of the most prominent of Western glass centers is Venice, Italy. Venetian glass techniques (mostly freehand blowing) have been renowned since the 700s CER. In 1291 all the glass studios were asked to remove to Murano, an island in the Venetian Lagoon, in order to prevent the risk of fire in Venice. Venetian luxury glass is unique because it uses ground quartz pebbles (almost pure silica) that are found locally mixed with locally sourced soda ash.

Lino Tagliapietra was born on the glass island of Murano. He apprenticed to a glassblower at age 11, and he exhibited immense gifts and dexterity for glass. He obtained the title "maestro" at the young age of 21. In Seattle in 1979 Tagliapietra introduced the traditions of Venetian glassblowing to the glass students at the Pilchuck School. Currently he splits his time between Seattle and Murano.

Correlation to Davis program: Davis Collections -- Contemporary Design