Background
Lino Tagliapietra was born in Murano, a small island in the Venetian lagoon, in 1934.
Lino Tagliapietra was born in Murano, a small island in the Venetian lagoon, in 1934.
At the age of 12, Lino apprenticed with a local glass Maestro and immersed himself in the culture and history of Italian glass blowing.
At the age of 11, Lino began his apprenticeship with the great maestro Archimede Seguso and by the age of 21 he had mastered the age-old glass blowing techniques and worked his way up to the title of maestro. Over the next 25 years Lino worked in association with several other master glass blowers at various factories on Murano. By the late 1960’s and 1970’s he was developing his own designs and creating them under the auspices of the factories in which he worked. In 1977 Lino became head glassblower for a new glass company, Effetre International.
In 1979, at the invitation of Dale Chihuly, Lino came to teach a summer workshop at the recently created Pilchuck School, north of Seattle. Thus began a long history of sharing his centuries old Muranese glassblowing technique with a generation of eager young American glass artists. Lino, in turn, was excited by the youthful enthusiasm and experimental mind set of the glass artists from the U.S. Influenced by the Abstract Expressionist school of painting these American artists were long on creative innovation but short on technique. Lino Tagliapietra, on the other hand, was a master technician coming out of a rigidly traditional approach to glass art and he loved the passionate exploration of new ideas and forms of the young American glass artists.
Anecdotally, Lino’s first trip to the U.S. involved several flights and some missed connections and took most of two days. He arrived in Seattle speaking no English and was whisked off to Pilchuck where, upon his arrival, he was informed that his students were waiting for him at the hot shop for his first scheduled class. Thus, Lino began teaching his first class, jetlagged and sleep deprived, and as excited as he had ever been about anything in his life. His students loved him.
During the 1980’s Lino was best known for his collaborative work with prominent American glass artists such as Dale Chihuly and Dan Dailey. But in the 1990’s, although he continued to teach and to collaborate with other artists, Lino became increasing well known for his own unique works of glass art. In 1987 Holsten Galleries became the first gallery in the U.S. to show the work of Lino Tagliapietra. Since that time we have worked closely with Lino to provide his very best pieces to hundreds of glass collectors. Today Holsten offers an extensive selection of some of the finest of the Maestro’s works.
Lino Tagliapietra blown glass works are in the collections of many major glass museums throughout the world and are sought after avidly by collectors of glass art. Some of the public collections which include Lino Tagliapietra blown glass art are the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, the Columbus Museum of Art in Columbus, the Corning Museum in New York, the Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art, in Japan; The Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Washington; the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Palm Springs Art Museum in California, The Renwick Gallery in Washington, D.C.; the Tokyo National Modern Art Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
Lino tends to create his blown glass sculpture in various series. Often his series are named after famous places that Lino has visited: Bilbao, Seattle Sunset, Maui, and Fuji are examples of these series. Others of Lino Tagliapietra’s glass series are named for their familiar shapes: Dinosaur, Foemina (Italian for female), Angel Tear, and Masai (after the Masai shields) are examples of Lino glass pieces whose shapes either obviously or more subtly refer to specific forms. Lino’s glass sculpture is known for its graceful forms, its exquisite palette of colors, and its masterful techniques.
Provenza (Blue)
Petra
Masai
Cornacchia
Saturno
Central Park
Sunda
Giudecca
Altare
Bisanzio
Maracaibo
Riverstone
Borboleta (il giardino di farfalle)
Fuji
Coinbra
Tholtico
Penguino Ballerino
Fortuna
Saba
Angel Tear
Pitagora
Concerto di Primavera
Silea
Garusolo
Angel Tear
Hama Hama
Ala
Batman
Provenza
Piccadilly
Dinosaur
Tatoosh
Coinbra
Anatra
Madras
Genesis II
Dinosaur
Ostuni
Riverstone
Bilbao
Masai (Masai d’Oro)
Flying Boats
Foemina
Coronado
Medusa
Tessare
Sveva
Caicco
Endeavor
Angel Tear
unknown title
Maui
Natoalos (Blue)
Coinbra
Makah
Rebecca
Hopi
Borneo
Saturno
Lino's specific sensibility and love for the Venetian glass helped him to achieve both aesthetic perfection and the quality of technical production. He uses traditional methods of glass bowling in combination with contemporary practices of carving, layering, and casing. Another fascinating feature is his colors, which he makes himself, keeping the palette classically Venetian, soft, gentle, and above all – beautiful.
Quotations: “Glass is alive. Even when it is cool it is still moving. It is connected with fire, it is connected with water, it is...my life.”
Lino Tagliapietra is a foreign honorary member of American Academy Arts & Sciences.
Quotes from others about the person
He was taught and has taught himself the glass art in light of the particular Venetian sensibility to glass, aimed at appreciating its characteristics as an absolutely unique material that can be melted, blown and molded when hot. In his work, it is also difficult, if not impossible, to separate the design stage from the technical-experimental, in that he thinks in glass; that is, he conceives the work not only in terms of its aesthetic qualities but simultaneously in the methods of its production.
On 13 September 1959, Lino married Lina Ongaro, whose family had been involved in Venetian glass production for centuries.